


Facing the Unknown

by Spinifex



Series: Facing the Unknown [1]
Category: Star Trek: Picard
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, Canon Backstory, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, Developing Relationship, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, First Meetings, Minor Original Character(s), Plot, Seven Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-19
Updated: 2020-06-18
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:15:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 33,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23729638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spinifex/pseuds/Spinifex
Summary: At some point during Stardust City Rag, Bjayzl mentions that Seven knows her, with the vague implication of something more. This is a story of what that was.
Relationships: Bjayzl/Seven of Nine, Raffi Musiker & Seven of Nine, Raffi Musiker/Seven of Nine
Series: Facing the Unknown [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1812886
Comments: 117
Kudos: 44





	1. Seven fails to pick up a mechanic, but finds another friend instead.

## \--- Coppelius: Borg Cube ---

“Tell me about them,” Raffi says.

## \--- Fenris Orbital Station: Causeway Bar ---

Seven leans in towards her drinking companion, inviting her to come a little closer. She slopes against the bar with a laid-back swagger, and watches the other woman with a smile on her face. There’s a bottle on the bar that she’s been sharing with her companion, and two sticky glasses into which both of them have been pouring shots. Seven’s movements are exaggerated by the quantity of alcohol that she’s already had to drink. The crush of patrons at the Causeway offers little room for either Seven or her partner to keep their distance. Seven takes advantage of that, by shifting subtly closer into the other woman's space.

Her companion is a Bajoran woman. She’s a workmate of Seven’s on the station, and one of her favourite friends. She’s a mechanical engineer and a starship specialist, shorter than Seven by nearly half a head. She has strong, small hands. They’re calloused from days spent armpit-deep in the guts of other people’s starships. A tattered woollen jumper is tied around her waist. It makes the unzipped torso of her grimy jumpsuit billow out a little, and it captures Seven’s attention. Her eyes drawn to a glimpse of shadowed cleavage and a tank top underneath.

Seven picks up one of the thin braids of hair that hang loose over her friend’s shoulders. It’s dark, and a little ragged from being tied roughly back through a day spent working. Seven’s eyes flit appreciatively across the other woman’s face: A smudge of soot rubbed nearly clean along her jaw, wide brown eyes, olive skin. These are the familiar details that Seven notices, winding her fingers around the long black braid.

“Please, Yani?” Seven says, continuing with their conversation. Her tone is low and intimate through their surroundings.

“I really need my ship.”

She leans closer still, glancing down at Yani’s mouth and then back up to her eyes, “You could just…”

Yani looks almost hypnotised. A dizzying mixture of alcohol and genuine interest make her sway into Seven’s space. At the last minute, Rozyani snaps out of the trance and straightens up again.

“- Fucks’ sake, Annika, no,” Yani says.

Rozyani catches Seven’s fingers and pulls her braid free with a sigh.

“A sanction is a sanction. I just don’t have the supplies,” she says.

She folds their clasped hands together against her chest. The zipper of her half-open jumpsuit is a light prickle of teeth against the back of Seven’s forearm. Then she says something that Seven doesn’t want to hear.

“I like you Annika, you know? But I won’t keep risking my job just ‘cos you’ve fluttered your eyes again and expect me to jump. I can't just…” - She searches for a phrase amongst the yellow bar lamps above their heads, - “…bend the rules whenever you're around.…There are bad people out there who are waiting on me to get their work done, and I can’t keep blowing them off, or rerouting parts, or…whatever else you need. One of these days, this job of yours is going to get us all killed. I’m sorry. I really am…but, it’s too dangerous,” she says.

Seven releases her companion and reaches for her whiskey where she left it on the bar. She downs the whole damned thing in one sharp movement.

“Okay...”

Seven gasps as the alcohol hits her sinuses like a freight train – nobody ever made a drink on Fenris that could be called ‘ _refined_ ’, and fumbles the tumbler back onto the bar. She’s disappointed, but she’s trying not to let it show. She really was hoping that Yani would come home with her.

“...That’s fine.”

Evidently, Seven is not as stealthy as she assumed; Rozyani’s expression softens and Seven feels her leaning closer, hands smoothing over her shoulders, pulling her into an embrace. When Yani moves back, she lingers over Seven’s biceps, gripping gently. Her hands are a shift of pressure and warmth on either side. Yani smiles briefly with that light behind her eyes that Seven likes and then kisses her, a firm press of full lips and then away, palms sliding over Seven’s arms until she’s standing on her own.

“Chin up Annika,” Rozyani teases, “I’ll sleep with you another day. – _But,_ not if you’re only offering because you just want me to do something for you. Got it? I want _you_ to want _me_ …” she pauses to wrinkle her nose, and then adds mirthfully, “…and not _just_ my mind-blowing skills in the maintenance bay.”

With that, Rozyani touches Seven’s cheek one last time and then leaves her standing against the bar. Seven watches her go, her slight body shouldering through the crowd until she isn’t visible any more.

*

**(Later)**

Another woman squeezes into the space beside Seven at the bar.

She’s tall, bolstered by the low-heeled boots she wears. Seven looks her over, despite her sullen mood. She has aloof, elfin features with dark, kohl-lined eyes. The makeup gives her gaze a hint of promise…like she might show Seven a thing or two, _in private_ …if she plays her cards right.

The woman carries her movements with the grace of a dancer as she flags down the barman with one braceleted arm. The jewellery chatters like muffled bells, sliding down her slender wrist. When her drink is served, the woman turns back to Seven and makes eye contact. She raises her chin in the direction of Yani’s departure, and opens with what Seven thinks is an impertinent remark.

“Hmm…That went well…?”

Seven shrugs and leans back against the bar, her elbows resting on the worn-out wood. The bar's surface is tacky, though not damp. The half-dried ring marks of past beer glasses pull at the sleeves of her brown leather jacket. She hums noncommittally through a frown, still looking in the direction in which Yani left.

“Bjayzl,” the woman offers, and after a moment of incomprehension, Seven realises that’s her name.

“You’re…very elegant. I saw you and...” Bjayzl pauses, an embarrassed flick of her eyes away from Seven’s challenging stare. In a moment she readjusts, smooth and confident, her body language now an invitation, “…And so, I wondered…can I buy you a drink?”

Seven regards her with suspicion and lines up a cutting remark. At the last second, she falters, and changes her mind. She feels stung by Yani’s rejection, even though her own actions gave the mechanic every reason to decline her advances.

So now, Seven nods to the new woman beside her, this one who thinks she’s very beautiful and who is offering to buy her a drink.

“I’m Annika, then,” says Seven, flashing her a winning smile, “and yeah, you can buy me something. I’ll take bourbon, neat.”


	2. A one-night-stand, a family friend (or a friend who’s family). Idle conversation.

## \--- Habitat Ring---

The morning cycle scratches light over Seven’s rented quarters much sooner than it is welcome. Seven shifts, wincing at the throbbing in her cortical node. It is an arc of Borg technology implanted above her left eye. She has other augmentations, too: one hand, the metal mesh-work wrapping around her wrist and up her forearm. And four solid bands like the boning on a corset, braced around her torso.

Those are just the pieces that are visible to casual observation. Her Borg hand is obvious, and the waist bands show up as ridges under her clothes. They’re a lifelong reminder of her assimilation by the Borg Collective as a child. Seven's a survivor though, and she's found that the less attention she draws to them, the easier life becomes.

The room beyond the bedside is mostly tidy, save for the scattering of clothes strewn about the floor. A stumpy-legged table stands within arm’s reach, though at the moment Seven doesn't need anything from it. On top of the table is a PADD that’s used for night time reading, as well as a grey-blue, potted succulent. Its leaves are like the arms of a starfish. It was a gift from a friend.

Seven rolls away from her scrutiny of the plant and dares a glance over her shoulder.

Beside her, Bjayzl stirs and opens her eyes. She's lying chest down, her cheek half-buried in the pillow. Her hair moves like a nest of brown waves that rustle as she wakes, and her shoulder blades ripple gracefully as she stifles a yawn. The room’s lighting casts shadows along the valley of her spine, and then over the rise of her buttocks as it disappears beneath the bed’s crumpled blanket. Her soft-looking lips curl slowly into a smile.

“Hi,” Bjayzl says, reaching out to touch the back of Seven’s hand.

The room pauses with the combined exhaustion of a night poorly-slept with someone new, and the mortification of facing a one-night stand in the light of the morning-after. Seven accepts her touch, turning her hand to briefly tangle their fingers on top of the rumpled bedclothes.

“Hey,” Seven replies.

Seven shifts into a seated position and then rises naked from her bed. Her body slides away from Bjayzl’s as she stretches, and then moves out of range. Seven fetches her robe from the chair in the corner of her bedroom and slides it across her shoulders. She tugs her long, blonde hair out from beneath her collar and then rummages in her dresser drawer. Eventually, she liberates a spare robe. Seven offers it to Bjayzl, who accepts it with sleepy thanks and then rolls from the bed. Stumbling around the room to find her clothes.

Seven watches her, quietly, feeling fatigued now more than anything else. They spent a good night together. Drunk, flirty, probably ill-advised, but Seven hasn’t decided whether or not she cares about that yet. It was nice to be held and to not think about anything, beyond seeking and providing pleasure with an eager partner. For a little while.

When Bjayzl has recovered her belongings, Seven points her to the bathroom door. It’s an ensuite-type arrangement, situated in the space between the bedroom door and the main living area of her apartment.

“You can take a shower through there if you like. There’s a replicator by the sink – go ahead and get a toothbrush or anything else you need,” says Seven.

She turns to make her way out into the living area, with its cramped kitchen, battered coffee table and lonely arm chair.

“I’m in desperate need of a coffee,” Seven says, “do you want one?”

She hears Bjayzl call out her agreement as the hum of the sonic shower starts. The noise merges in with the background hush of the station. Seven replicates two pods of coffee and then slides them into the coffee-maker on the counter for a fresh-made brew. The drink is bitter-black, steaming hot and aromatic. Seven fills her mug and breathes the dark scent in, relaxing. She takes a long swallow, eyes closing, letting her awkwardness dissipate as she slides back into her more positive, confident persona. Like a comfortable pair of shoes.

A trilling from the comm unit by the coffee table interrupts Seven’s meditation. She’s setting a second mug out on the counter for her guest to use. Seven walks around the counter and activates the console. A holographic image appears, bursting upwards and outwards in a fan of light, before resolving into a three-dimensional image of a man.

The hologram is rendered by a network of light emitters that are built into the rooms of almost every habitation in Federation space. The set-up in Seven’s apartment is hardly state-of-the-art, but it gets the job done, which Seven feels is good enough.

Seven smiles happily at the young man, the action brightening her often-serious features.

“Icheb, hey – how are you doing?” she says.

Icheb grins back. He stands at ease with his hands clasped loosely behind him, his feet shoulder-width apart. He’s happy in his red-shouldered Starfleet uniform. The gold bar of his newly-minted lieutenant’s rank glints from the high, black collar 'round his neck. Along the bridge of his nose is a thin sliver of metal: a legacy Borg implant similar to Seven’s.

A combination of fondness and pride tugs at Seven’s heart strings whenever the young man calls in. He’s one of the few people that she feels close to, and to watch him doing well in his profession gives her reason to feel satisfied.

“Seven, hey, good morning!” he says, “Look, I’m sorry I haven’t contacted you in so long. You know, what with Starfleet withdrawing and everything - and my promotion and– hey, woah…” Icheb says.

Icheb pauses. Taken by surprise as movement over Seven’s shoulder catches his eye. Seven glances behind her to see what has distracted him, as Bjayzl shuffles in.

The woman reaches for the mug that Seven left for her on the kitchen counter. Then she starts filling it up with heavy movements. It’s nothing scandalous. She’s decent, fresher from her sonic shower. But…still looking _exactly_ like the reason for Seven’s lack of sleep.

She is magnificent.

Seven turns back to Icheb and blushes, cursing at her own timing. Icheb is like a son to her. There’s something strangely uncomfortable about somebody else bearing witness to her one-night stand. She lifts her near-empty coffee mug to her mouth; it’s a futile attempt at hiding her embarrassment.

Icheb smirks, knowingly. He's amused that the situation discomforts her, “Is this a bad time?”

Seven puts her coffee down, unable to resist just one more glance at the woman behind her, and then drags her gaze away. She grins ruefully back at Icheb.

“Shut up," she says. And then, "probably, it is, yeah.”

She looks up at him, and then asks sheepishly, “Call back later?”

“Much later, you got it,” he says.

Icheb laughs, and his hologram copies his movements as he reaches for his comm controls.

“Icheb out.”

Seven ends the call as Bjayzl rests her forearms against the kitchen counter. Her coffee mug is cradled between her fine-boned hands, warming her fingers.

She’s dressed again in the clothes that she was wearing last night: A loose-sleeved top, with a fitted bodice, that Seven recalls sneaking her fingers under to stroke the soft skin beneath. Tight, black jeans, with a brassy catch. It made a strong bid to hold out against their alcohol-dazed fumbling, before one of them – possibly Bjayzl, was finally able to snap it apart.

The rest of the night beyond that triumph has become a pleasant blur: Her teeth and lips moving down Bjayzl’s neck, the other woman’s fingers kneading along her back, slinking lower. Bjayzl sliding against her, providing friction with one thigh, a low groan of want from deep in her throat. Bjayzl’s dark skin deliciously soft, encouraging Seven to move down her body and taste her, mouth hot.

Bjayzl smirks at Seven, raising an eyebrow as if to say that she knows what the other woman is thinking about.

Seven grins self-consciously, shaking her head. “Sorry about taking that comm call,” she says, “he called while you were showering.”

Seven stands and walks over to the opposite side of the kitchen counter, reaching for Bjayzl’s hand as she arrives.

Bjayzl tilts her chin slightly towards Seven’s comm.

“Family?” Bjayzl asks, noting their similarity in speech and gesture, more than any physical resemblance.

Seven nods. “In a way. We went through some hard times together. Feels like a long time ago,” Seven says.

Seven flexes her Borg-crafted hand, feeling the shift and pull of the metal implant at the end of her real arm.

“A different life, almost,” she says.

“Ex Borg?” asks Bjayzl, her eyes drawn to the movement that Seven’s making. Her dark eyes glide over the implants that adorn the other woman’s face. She looks as though she suspected it, but didn’t want to assume.

“Voyager,” Seven says, as though that answers everything.

But evidently Bjayzl doesn’t know, because she tilts her head and makes a questioning noise.

“Hm?” she says.

Seven looks surprised, “Voyager: A starship we were on...Lost in the delta quadrant, triumphant return. A great achievement and hope for humanity…” she only sounds a little bitter.

Bjayzl still looks blank.

“You’ve really never heard about it? I thought news travelled fast,” says Seven.

“Maybe not outside the Alpha quadrant. The Federation doesn’t come by here too often. Not anymore,” Bjayzl laughs.

Seven only raises an eyebrow, wordlessly apologizing as she relaxes back into the conversation.

“Yeah. I guess…well anyway, long story short, Voyager’s crew rescued us from the Collective, rehabilitated us, and then brought us home,” she says.

She shrugs, watching Bjayzl’s fingers toying with the implant braced around her wrist, “It wasn’t easy, but I guess we have each other now.”

“Do you still contact them?” asks Bjayzl.

Seven shifts in her seat, looking down at the drying ring of coffee at the bottom of her now-empty mug. “Apart from Icheb, no. No not really. I guess we just drifted apart. Different ideals, different interests,” she says.

“You don’t miss them?” Bjayzl asks, turning and placing her mug in the replicator and pressing the ‘recycle’ setting.

Seven joins her, watching the mug get turned into atoms by the recycler. It doesn’t get any easier, talking or thinking about Voyager. Most days Seven finds it better not to think about it at all.

“I miss them…mildly. Sometimes, I suppose,” Seven says, “It’s harder now that we’ve stopped agreeing over some important things.”

Bjayzl simply watches her, offering her silence as encouragement for Seven to explain.

Seven continues, uncertain why she wants to, figuring that maybe she finds it easier to confess her disappointments to somebody whom she is unlikely to ever see again.

“You know, about this whole mess with Starfleet,” she says, referring to the Admiralty’s withdrawal from the sector, “We were in a position to influence major decisions within the Federation. People were dying. They needed us: needed our help. But in the end, they thought toeing Starfleet’s line was more important, and I couldn’t let that go. I left and I joined the Rangers.”

Seven pauses: angrily, regretfully. Catching her bottom lip for a moment between her teeth. The brief pressure makes the bitten skin darken in a fleeting blush of red, “We haven’t spoken since.”

Bjayzl responds with interest at Seven’s mention of her current employer, “As in…the Fenris Rangers?”

“Yeah. Why?” Seven says.

Bjayzl laughs, a bright, incredulous sound.

“Oh, uh…it’s just that, well. I’ve just signed a contract with them. Only yesterday.”

She catches Seven’s gaze and snorts inelegantly. Both of them are experiencing the stark realisation that yes, now they’re colleagues. And that oh, _shit,_ now they’re almost certainly going to see each other again.


	3. Icheb returns a comm call. Seven fixes a spacecraft, and then considers sentiment. Nobody assaults a hologram.

## \--- Docking Bay ---

It’s another three weeks before Icheb manages to return his promised call.

Seven walks the perimeter of her corsair with his hologram keeping her company. She’s been ignoring the weird little moments of dismemberment whenever the signal from the docking bay’s emitters get blocked by the plating on the space craft’s wings.

The corsair is Seven’s pride and joy. It’s a type of short-range fighter; With the advantage of being capable in both the vacuum of space, and inside a planet’s atmosphere. It’s sleek, and is built with the need for aerodynamics in mind. The body of the spacecraft is longer than it is wide. The ceiling of the corsair rises to maybe a meter taller than Seven’s head, though the ship’s cabin is still a cramped little space in which to stand.

Two broad, curved wings sweep cloak-like from either side of the corsair, angling outwards and downwards. Flanges on the forward edges of each wing curve gracefully towards the nose of the craft.

To most people, it has an outdated design and looks downright ugly. To Seven, it’s the first ship she bought when she left her life on Earth, along with her crewmates from Voyager.

It’s the best damned machine in the universe.

Their conversation has wandered, annoyingly, to Icheb needling Seven about her love life. He’s taken a laser-like focus upon the mysterious and lovely ‘Jay’.

( _In his words, clearly, not hers_ ).

-And now Seven’s kicking herself for giving away that detail.

“So, you’re saying you’ve been out with her now… _how many times_?” Icheb asks with feigned innocence.

Seven runs a calibrator over her ship’s forward diffractor array. She ducks under one of its broad sweeping wings, and squashes the urge to whack Icheb’s hologram with a spanner.

For being a nuisance.

“A few times,” she says, “and most of it was work…which is certainly not the same as what you’re implying.”

Seven turns and glares at him, “Not that it is much of your concern.”

Icheb folds his hands behind his back. Rocking on his heels and gleefully mimicking an interrogator’s stance.

“Oh, ‘Most of it’?" he asks, placing emphasis on the ' _most_ ' part.

"Logic would thus imply that at least ‘some’ of that time was specially arranged: Am I correct?” says Icheb.

Seven rolls her eyes. Carefully feigning busy work and fighting back a blush as she recalls what some of those times involved.

“It might be,” she says, “though you would do well to cease this line of questioning.”

Mercifully, Icheb relents.

“Alright, fine. I get it,” he says, “It’s just nice to know you’ve met someone. You seem happier. It suits you.”

Seven nods, forgoing any explicit verbal agreement. Acknowledging her continued attraction to Jay would make it real and undeniable. She doesn’t feel ready to deal with that, she hasn’t really been this consciously committed to anyone before.

One the other hand, if she’s being honest, there’s a part of Seven that enjoys having Bjayzl as a secret; Just for herself. Their burgeoning –something- is still quite new and exciting. Not forbidden, really, but the secrecy of having a new lover, is enough to send a thrill down Seven’s spine.

Sensing an opening in the conversation, Seven leaps at it. Steering their focus in another direction.

“And what about you Icheb? Are you still enjoying Starfleet?” asks Seven.

If Icheb notices the redirection, he’s polite enough not to mention it. His Starfleet commission can sometimes be a sore point between them. But he knows that Seven’s disapproval is with his employer, not with his career.

“Yeah it’s excellent. Thank you for asking. -” Icheb starts.

Seven listens to him fondly as he launches into a description of his latest discoveries, and of the work that they’re doing in the nearby star system, overseeing delivery of supplies.

He’s keen: Inquisitive and optimistic in a way that Seven wonders if she’s forgotten how to be. Perhaps it’s all a part of being young and idealistic. He hasn’t had sufficient time to realise that the middle ground between a choice that the Federation might sell as either ‘black’ or ‘white’, is ultimately a shade of grey. Somebody will always be on the losing side of a Starfleet decision. They are likely to be denied any opportunity for either justice or reprisal.

It troubles her to think that at some point Icheb will experience that disappointment. And that there is little that she can do in order to prevent it. Though that doesn’t mean that she won’t try.

Icheb trails off when he notices that Seven’s attention has started drifting. She isn’t even tinkering with her spaceship anymore.

“Are you alright?” Icheb asks.

Seven looks up, “What? Oh. Yes. I’m fine. Sorry. I started thinking.”

Icheb sits down beside Seven, where she has leaned against the corsair’s fuselage. He reaches out and taps one finger against her knee.

“Deep thoughts then?” says Icheb.

“Hah – no,” she says, leaning briefly against his hologram and then shifting back upright.

“Sentiment. Or something,” says Seven.

Seven turns her head to look at him, regarding him seriously.

“You know that I’ve got your back, Icheb?” she promises, “As much as possible?”

Icheb doesn’t laugh at her. He understands.

“Yeah, of course I know,” Icheb answers reassuringly, “I have never had any doubt.


	4. Seven discovers a mystery. A bird falls out of the sky. Bjayzl visits the farm.

## \--- Glidden’s Landing Agricultural Colony---

The Fenris Rangers have a shitty job. It is un-glamorous and often thankless work. The pay, likewise, is not all that great.

Mission alerts are delivered via Central Dispatch to their personal comm units. Their new assignments frequently arrive in waves of up to five distress calls at one time. It doesn’t sound like much, but when it comes to prioritising lives, four of those calls are four-too-many.

Seven does the work regardless. Because the worse alternative would mean giving up. She still considers herself to be a hopeful person. In spite of everything else.

Today Seven approaches the aftermath of one of those four-too-many calls. Another signal that she wasn’t able to reach fast enough. The dispatch notes describe it as a probable kidnapping.

Ever since the Federation withdrew their money and influence from the Hypatia system, the general conventions for keeping law and order were thrown out the window, leaving vigilante groups like the Fenris Rangers to do the cleaning up.

For the blackmailers and the warlords, any word that someone might deliver a large ransom is like a flashing neon sign at a free-for-all buffet. The Rangers do their damnedest to keep the syndicates in line, which is difficult. All they can do to keep themselves going is to remind each other that sometimes they get the hostages back.

And with any luck, they’re still alive.

*

Seven’s dispatch is to a recently established agricultural colony. It’s on a satellite at the very edge of the Hypatia system, called Glidden’s Landing. Everything seems tired and second hand. A colony starting this far out from the major planets would have to beg and borrow for their supplies. But the infrastructure and fields look freshly-dug, and somewhat new. Genetically modified crops push through the soil on either side of the half-finished road, as Seven follows the directions on her handheld comm.

The light of the Hypatia system’s distant star is captured and reflected towards the outermost planets by the Hypatia Mirror Array. The perspective of the satellite’s horizon turns the gargantuan feat of engineering into a small burning glow.

The heat beats down on Seven’s jacket as she walks. It makes a sheen of sweat stick her shirt against her back. Her hair is down, because her ponytail annoys her. And now the loose strands about her face get caught up by the breeze, clinging in tendrils to her cheeks. Distractedly, she brushes them away, referring to her comm unit as it guides her to a compact, Federation-issued habitat pod.

The pod, squat-domed and low, once knew better days. It now stands behind a sparse and scrubby yard of trampled dirt and browning plants. Seven considers it, musing that it’s like a home; with a dog and a white picket fence...minus the fence, the dog, and the romance.

Seven ties her hair back with an elastic band that she keeps around her wrist, using short, efficient movements. The blond waves flick between her fingers as she pulls them through the band.

She approaches the pod’s front door with measured strides. Her boots kicking up clouds of bulldust. They settle in a fine grey powder over her toe caps, and along the creases of her pants, giving the dark green khaki an ochre tint.

It’s immediately obvious, as she looks down at the threshold, that there was a scuffle here. Drag marks in the dirt outside lead away from the door. They stop and start at irregular intervals. There are the imprints of maybe four sets of shoes, two pairs of them on their edges.

Seven crouches on one knee to take a closer look at them. She presses her hand into the dust beside the closest imprint to get a measure of the person’s approximate size.

Someone was dragging an unconscious or lifeless body then. The hauler stopping to readjust their grip before continuing on.

Seven rises from her crouch, and turns to face the door behind her. Cautiously, she steps over the threshold. She notes as she passes through the half-open doorway that the sliding mechanism has been jostled off its rails. The damage is preventing the door from sliding completely closed.

The pod’s interior is a mess. In the kitchen area against the far wall, a stock pot is smoking on the cooking console. It threatens catching fire if it remains unattended for much longer. An automatic extractor fan is installed above the console and it whines with the effort of keeping the acrid smoke at bay. It is emitting a high-pitched shriek of warning that has thus far been ignored.

Seven looks around at the rest of the scene.

The table was set for two: the cutlery is in disarray. Some of it was knocked to the floor. Both drinking vessels are still standing, un-emptied. They present a strange contrast to the single upturned chair, with its two front legs cracked and splintered. One of the support struts fell away from the chair’s legs, and came to a stop against the adjacent wall.

A dent in the wall suggests that the strut was flung into it with force. But not with so much enthusiasm as to make it rebound. The chair’s resting place looks like it was briefly wielded as a weapon, before being discarded. Though whether it was used for self-defence, or in attack, Seven cannot tell.

Wanting to prevent the house from catching fire, and spurred onward by the extractor's urgent shrieking, Seven goes to the kitchen to switch off the cooking console. When she touches the controls for the heating element, she discovers that they’re much hotter than she expected. She draws back her fingers with a gasp, shaking away the burn. The tips of her fingers keep smarting redly. Until the Borg-injected nanoprobes in Seven’s bloodstream can complete repairs on her damaged skin cells.

Seven looks around the compact room for another way to shut down the stove.

The pod’s central control panel is tucked into an alcove beside the door. She crosses over to it in three tall strides. A fruitless tug at the release handle reveals that the panel’s cover is jammed shut. Scratches in the paint work suggest that at some point the catches were forced open. Bending out of place when the cover was closed again.

It could be unrelated, Seven rationalises, the result of homeowner carelessness, or a long-lost key perhaps…

In a moment, Seven realises that her cool is slipping, and that she’s getting distracted by superfluous detail. The threat of the smoke. The whine of the exhaust fan. And the strange, tense detritus of the conflict that she’s witnessed here, are all triggering that animal instinct to run or fight.

She takes a breath to control her panic, and get a grip. The reason why the panel is broken is irrelevant. She should focus on shutting the power down. The evidence in this pod is meaningless if her distraction lets the whole damned place burn to the ground.

Seven checks her surroundings for anything that she can use as a makeshift tool. Her eyes land on the table settings. The flat blade of one of those butter knives can fit in beneath the edge of the panel’s cover. It would provide sufficient leverage for her to jimmy it open again.

Seven’s movements are swift and efficient as she crosses to the table and grabs a knife, and then returns to the console to pry it open. The cover comes free with a crack, and Seven lets both the knife and the cover drop to the floor at her feet.

Then she reaches in and turns the switch to disconnect the mains power from the cooking console.

It’s done.

The house is now lit just by the warm light coming through the windows. The last furls of smoke from the scorched pot wind amongst the shadows. It makes Seven cough, and she covers her mouth and nose with her shirt, lifting the fabric to her face with one hand.

A sequence of flashes from the status light for the pod’s comms system makes Seven stop in surprise.

Three rapid flashes in white: the standby colour. Then once in red: a warning. Three again in white…and then it switches back to blue. All systems normal…as though the previous sequence never happened.

“What is that?”

Seven stares hard at the status light, daring it to go again. It doesn’t. It shines on, steadily, benign and blue.

Curious, she checks the primary circuit. It’s located in a pull-out box within the main control alcove. Seven almost misses it at first, but when she does spot it, it’s incredibly obvious. At least to anyone who’d know what to expect, when looking at a comms circuit.

An Echo device has been soldered to the comms diode. It’s black market technology. A repeater; Intended to duplicate, magnify, and retransmit an ‘echo’ of any incoming or outgoing communications that the signal rides.

The pieces of the puzzle start to fall in place. The inhabitants of this dwelling were being watched. The mess inside the main room…is perhaps not a crime of opportunity, as presupposed. But maybe one of careful planning and forethought. Her concern grows.

Seven pats down the pockets of her trousers in search of her tricorder, needing it to scan the Echo device, and maybe find out where it’s relaying the inhabitant’s comms. If she can trace the coordinates of the echo, then the Rangers might get a chance to recover the missing people who were attacked here.

To her annoyance, she finds that her pockets are empty. She realises that she’s left the instrument on her ship.

 _Careless_.

-But at least there’s no imminent threat of the pod burning down anymore. Seven makes her decision: she’ll have to run to fetch it and then come back.

A solid object crunches underfoot, as Seven steps away from the control panel, towards the habitat pod’s front door. It’s a holograph. Seven picks it up. Brushing away the shattered safety glass.

Two people, the couple who owned this place, presumably, smile up at her. They’re Ex-Borg. That much is evident from their facial features. Both of them have the metal bands left over from the cortical implants that would have anchored technology used for the Borg drone’s visual receptors.

Some survivors opt for complete reconstructive surgery if they are freed from the Collective. However, most cannot access that level of surgical skill and expertise. And the leftover structures of their cortical nodes leave obvious scars for the rest of their lives.

She tucks the holograph into her trouser pocket, minding the ragged edges, and exits through the door.

*

A second corsair touches down in the distance as Seven jogs back up the road towards her ship. She’s intent on retrieving her tricorder so that she can examine the Echo device.

The pilot strolls out of their spacecraft’s cabin and starts walking down the road towards her. It's a woman. She's dressed in long, brown boots and dark trousers. They cling to her thighs like a second skin. Her black shirt is covered with a loose wool jacket. The open edges catch the breeze as she lifts her arm up to shade her eyes.

Seven recognises the approaching figure with surprise as she draws closer. The dark-haired woman recognises Seven too, and covers the remaining distance to greet her.

“Annika?” Bjayzl says, pausing to catch her breath.

“What are you doing here?”

Bjayzl glances down at her comm after wrestling it from her jacket pocket, checking the display.

“I only just received the dispatch…” Bjayzl says.

Seven pulls out her own communicator, “That can’t be right.”

Then she flips the screen around so that Jay can see, “I responded more than fifteen minutes ago. Look, there.”

She points to the relevant row, where her name and ship registration are displayed.

Bjayzl studies her own comm unit, and then squints in the direction of Glidden’s Landing. Again, she uses her hand to shield her eyes against the sun’s glare.

“That’s weird,” Bjayzl says.

Seven nods in agreement, but doesn’t think much of the mystery. Shrugging it aside.

“Tell me about it. Dispatch issues again,” Seven says.

The Ranger’s resources are sparse, meaning that operational issues become common. A more urgent priority presents itself, and she catches Bjayzl’s hand, “Hey wait, do you have your tricorder on you? I found an Echo device…I left mine- “

Bjayzl looks at Seven sharply, her voice is tense as she interrupts.

“You did?”

Seven pauses, a little thrown by her lover’s reaction, “…Yes. Though I haven’t been able to track it yet - so if you have your tricorder with you, we can go and do that now.”

Bjayzl looks apprehensive, her attention distracted with the distant pods of Glidden’s Landing. She opens her mouth to speak, but she is interrupted by the whoosh and blast of an explosion.

The noise is like a sudden in-rush of air followed by a great, whumping exhale. Startled birds flush, shrieking, from the ground cover. They form a frantic cloud of feathers as they fly into the air.

There’s a roar of noise, followed quickly by a scorching wall of wind and heat.

Bjayzl grabs Seven’s sleeve and pulls her to the ground.

“Get down!” Bjayzl says, tucking their bodies closer together.

“What the fuck?!” Seven says as the cloud of debris rushes past them. The grit stings her neck where her skin is exposed above her collar.

Glidden’s Landing burns.

*

Seven lifts her face from the shield of Bjayzl’s arms once the shock wave passes. She stares in bewilderment, at the colony’s remains.

It is completely obliterated.

The habitat pods are smoking wrecks, and the once grey spinegrass is charcoal-black and singed. Little spot fires flare and die amongst the damaged leaves. They send gibberish smoke signals up to an indifferent sky.

A small, limp, bird that didn’t fly off fast enough lies in a skid of dust near the women’s feet. Its sad, black eyes are glassy in its head. The only noises that break the silence are the distant cacophony of its flock fleeing, and the crackle of flames consuming the spinegrass.

“What the fuck…” Seven repeats.

Seven’s ears are ringing and her skin is raw from where it was exposed. Her heart is pounding and she can feel the blood pulsing inside her head. Bile rises in her throat, but she sternly swallows it down.

Dazedly, Seven realises that Bjayzl has been calling her name “-nika…Annika, are you hurt?”

“I’m okay. I think,” she says, more confidently than she feels, “Nothing…nothing serious. You?”

Bjayzl shrugs, then winces, “A little singed. Nothing that some first aid can’t fix.”

Seven tries to respond to her, but her heart is still pounding and Bjayzl’s voice seems strangely far away. She needs to speak louder, and their surroundings need to stop…fading out like that. It’s difficult to concentrate.

Seven senses, more than she consciously registers, the soft pressure of Bjayzl’s palms cupping her face, her lovely, dark eyes examining her with concern.

“You however,” Seven hears Bjayzl saying, muffled over the surge of blood, “I think that you’re in shock.”

Bjayzl takes Seven’s arm and starts herding her back towards their ships. Seven stumbles, resisting, and trying to turn them both the other way, “Wait, Jay…the colony-”

“It’s gone, Annika. We can come back later. Right now, I need to get you home.”

 _That’s ridiculous_ , Seven thinks, wondering why she feels like she’s taken a sedative. _We still have work to do._

She takes a breath to say it – to argue that there are lives on the line, but nothing happens. Her vision swims, and the horizon lurches wildly to one side. A wave of nausea nearly brings Seven to her knees.

She clutches at her companion – “Jay? I don’t…feel so good.”


	5. Seven takes a nap and wakes up much refreshed. Bjayzl offers a firm hand. Twice. Bruce attends a barbecue.

## \--- Habitat Ring ---

Seven wakes in darkness, her head on a pillow. A fuzzy silhouette towers over the bed. Seven blinks hard to resolve its shape.

“You’re awake,” Jay says.

“What happened?” Seven murmurs, pushing at the mattress in an attempt to sit upright. Bjayzl helps her with one firm hand, which she then switches to soothing over Seven’s back.

Seven accepts a cup of water from her lover and looks around, finally recognising her bedroom. The cabin’s overhead lighting is mercifully turned down low. She sips the water and sets the cup on the bedside table, awaiting Bjayzl's reply.

“You passed out,” Bjayzl says, “I took us home.”

Bjayzl settles next to Seven. The weight of her body makes the mattress dip, tipping Seven against her side. The other woman’s body is warm, and reassuring. Seven notices that she has changed out of her work clothes, and has scrubbed her skin free from the grime of Glidden’s Landing. The clean scent of the jumper she’s wearing is a welcome, soothing balm.

Bjayzl pulls Seven close, and presses one cheek against her lover’s hair.

“Are you alright, Annika? I worried,” she says.

Seven sighs groggily, turning her face to nuzzle into the comfort of the other woman’s chest.

“I’m functioning,” she decides.

Then a thought occurs to her, “...how did we get here from the Landing if we both flew there with our own ships?”

“We took mine, of course. Yours is still over there. Ah-” Bjayzl anticipates the interruption, “-Salvage has already gone to get your ship for you, and they’ll offer assistance to the colony while they’re there.”

She shifts, rubbing a soothing hand over Seven’s arm, “Our people sent word back that there weren’t any casualties.”

She nuzzles Seven’s hair again, “We’ll learn more when they return. Everything will be fine.”

*

The salvage team leader reports back over Bjayzl’s personal comm link the following day.

The two women stand beside one-another, in front Seven’s modest vid-screen. They’re close enough to be sharing body heat, but still far enough apart to be decent.

Bjayzl flicks the message through to the screen, rather than sending it through the living room’s projectors. She’s more familiar with Seven’s apartment now. Spending an increasing amount of time on, as Bjayzl puts it, _overnight visits_. Seven is quite amused that the other woman can be so coy. Though in another way, she also appreciates Bjayzl’s secrecy, being an often-private person herself.

In a moment, the screen activates. Showing a broadcast of a man whom Seven doesn’t recognise. The Ranger greets Bjayzl; the pair are evidently familiar with each other already.

Then Bjayzl introduces him to Seven.

“Bruce, this is Annika, my partner,” Bjayzl braves a little glance at Seven, daring a first-time acknowledgement of their relationship outside of their own inner circle. Seven welcomes it, flashing a gentle smile in Bjayzl’s direction. They’ve been working on this couple thing for nearly three months now.

Then Bjayzl continues, “-and our colleague. We’ve been quite anxious to hear from you.”

The ranger nods to both of them, to show that he’s heard.

Heavy-set and balding at his temples, Bruce looks tired from the five-hour trip back to the Orbital station. He talks with an accent that is broad and twangy. He sounds of parched red sands and outback places. He launches straight into a rundown of what he found.

“Jay. Annika. We retrieved your corsair from Glidden’s Landing, and checked out the colony’s remains. Nil casualties, save the two unknowns Annika was following up on.”

He puts his large meaty hands on his hips and hitches his pants higher around his waist. The motion disturbs the gut hanging around his middle, the result of a sedentary middle age.

“We moved the other guys to a safer area, set ‘em up with temporary habitats. They’ll be right until we can get supplies in to help rebuild, or we can try and get the Federation ships to do ‘em a loaner, meanwhile.”

Seven steps towards the vid screen with both arms folded across her chest. It’s not really an aggressive posture. It’s more of a mannerism that she’s adapted to stop herself from betraying her agitation in stressful situations.

“Do you know who or what was responsible for the explosion?” Seven asks, “I found evidence to suggest that the missing couple were being watched, but I didn’t get a chance to verify. Were you able to gather anything relating to the blast at all?”

Bruce shakes his head, “Yeah, no. Sorry. Nothing solid, there. Closest thing- we think it was some kind of air to ground missile. Probably fired from high orbit. You guys were lucky to only catch the shockwave. The Landing’s a full-on barbecue. Sorry guys. Whatever hit ‘em had a sizable payload. That place is gone.”

Seven curses under her breath, and glares at the far wall behind the vid screen. There’s a good chance whoever did this will get away, and they’ll never find out what happened to the people who sent the distress call.

If she hadn’t been careless enough to leave her tricorder behind, then at least they would have had a single, shitty, lead to follow.

She has another question, “Did the survivors of the colony have anything to say about the missing people?” Seven says, “Did they give any indication that they know who killed the Landing?”

Bruce shrugs, eyes flitting to Bjayzl and away again.

“Quiet as lambs. Either they don’t know or they won’t talk. There’s nothing much we can do about it,” he says, and then aiming for levity, he adds, “…short of taking ‘em in for interrogation.”

Bjayzl scoffs at the half-hearted joke.

“That won’t be necessary,” Bjayzl says.

She shifts her weight from one leg to the other, her hips mapping out a parabola of space.

“Someone might feel like talking eventually though,” she tells Bruce, looking sternly into his eyes, “so we’ll just have to keep an eye on it. Understand?”

From the video link, Bruce nods. He runs a shaky hand through his thinning hair as he watches Bjayzl's face.

“Loud and clear, Jay. I’ll let you know. Salvage out.”


	6. Seven feels angry. Rozyani has an airlock. An alien has difficulty reading Seven’s mind.

## \--- Flight Deck---

At work, Seven is short with the flight crew and awful to her friends.

Her bad mood is driven by frustration, knowing that she’d been close to finding just one decent lead on the abduction, and then losing it because she was careless enough to leave equipment behind.

The fiery destruction of Glidden’s Landing seemed suspicious, too. Even if it is a rather extravagant method of covering one’s tracks. Then again, for whoever was responsible, blowing shit up worked.

The Rangers’ headquarters have told her to let it go – it’s beyond their capabilities, in both human resources and monetary funds.

Seven has just sent another of the flight crew running when Rozyani marches over and backs her up against her ship. The corsair shelters both of them from view behind one sweeping wing.

Yani's expression is fierce and her body language is exasperated. The small Bajoran is easily intimidating when she wants to be: It’s part of the reason why Seven likes her so much.

Regardless, Seven tries not to flinch as the other woman's glare pins her to the wall.

“Prophets, Annika – what is up your ass today?” Yani says.

“You’re offending all your friends and you’re pissing off my crew! Are you trying to make me throw you off the flight deck? Because at this rate, my crew might decide that the nearest airlock will do, and I’m gonna help them with the door!” she says.

Her last two statements sound like they could just as easily be promises, as they are also threats.

Seven sighs, well aware that Yani’s ire is justified. She should be better than this, and certainly a lot nicer to her friends. But today it’s hard…though annoying, because that doesn’t mean it is an excuse.

Shame-facedly, she breaks the mechanic’s gaze, feeling emotion well up in her chest. Seven blinks back tears. And then gets frustrated at her lack of control, and that makes just everything so much worse.

A hot tear escapes along her cheek, followed quickly by another. And then one more. Seven scrubs at them with the cuff of her sleeve, choking back a breath as her stress gets the better of her.

Naturally, Rozyani notices, and seeing that her friend is struggling, the chief mechanic steps to the side and quickly keys in the manual entry code for Seven’s corsair. She hustles them both inside, to the relative privacy of the ship’s cabin, where she waits for Seven to dry her eyes.

“Tell me what’s wrong?” Yani asks, when Seven has control again.

The taller woman shakes her head, taking a deep breath and releasing it in a forceful exhale.

Seven tells Yani about the dispatch to Glidden’s Landing. The distress call and the ruined pod. Finding the inhabitants gone, and the Echo device. She still has the couple’s holograph in her trouser pocket, and she pulls it out and shows it to her friend.

Yani takes the holo and studies it quietly, her finger tracing over the faces of the smiling couple.

“They were Ex-Borg…” she says distractedly, almost to herself.

“I’m sure someone was watching them,” Seven says, “I could have traced the signal if I’d been less careless- made sure I had all my equipment before I left my ship. Maybe I could have-”

“Annika, stop that,” Rozyani says, squeezing gently on one of Seven’s shoulders, “You didn’t take them. It’s not your fault.”

Seven puts her hands on her hips and looks out through the corsair’s windshield at the people working on the flight deck. The tinted, transparent aluminium gives an almost aquarium-like quality to the view outside. Isolated and untouchable.

“No. I know that. But it doesn’t help, really. You know?” says Seven.

Yani leans over and gives Seven a hug, “Of course I do,” she says, ever forgiving.

"But sweetheart, even so," Yani adds after a beat, "you’ve gotta be nicer to my crew.”

She squeezes Seven briefly, then lets her friend go, handing back the holograph.

“Or so help me: I _will_ toss you out an airlock myself,” Yani says.

Seven scoffs involuntarily, and then takes the holo and slides it back into her pocket. Yani is still watching her, and Seven tucks her hair behind her ears just for something to do.

“Yes, fine. Okay,” Seven says.

Then she takes a step towards the cockpit of her corsair, gesturing in that general direction, “I’d better get back to work.”

Yani nods. She pats her friend’s arm one final time before heading for the cabin door.

“Same here,” She turns and gives Seven a wink, hoping that a hint of light flirtation will cheer Seven up, “I’d better go and see if there are any more asses that I need to chew – apart from yours of course. Take care, Annika. Fly safe.”

*

Seven slides into her pilot’s seat once Yani has gone, settling into the leather against her back. The faux-leather upholstery curves snugly against her spine, and a safety harness rolls down to brace her chest.

A touchpoint on the right-hand arm of the chair brings up the pilot’s interface. Seven reaches up and grabs the blue-coloured tactical visor, dragging it down in front of her.

When in combat, the tactical display registers target lock and calculates weapons trajectories. Right now, it shows the hazards laid out in front of the ship: flight deck workers marked in red, overhanging obstacles in blue. It also marks the safe path out of the ship’s berth and across towards the airlock.

Seven starts her pre-flight sequence, checking in with the flight controller for her take-off slot, and contacting the Ranger’s dispatch center for her first set of call-outs for the day. Flight control gives her the all clear for departure just as the coordinates come through from dispatch. Seven guides her corsair up, and out over the flight deck and into the cold stars beyond.

## \--- Nas-Hujjar Mining Facility---

Seven’s main assignment is at Nas-Hujjar; it’s a mining facility on one of the moons belonging to the eighth planet in the Hypatia system. The facility is almost a three-hour flight at Warp One from Fenris Orbital. The mission promises to be a relatively straightforward one, defending ore shipments descending from the moon to the planet’s surface. The ponderous ore freighters are vulnerable to raiding parties: presenting slow moving targets with a generous bounty, to anyone who dares to attack them. Generally, the raiders will keep away from cargo that is protected by the Fenris Rangers. But the cocksure, or the desperate ones, might be tempted to try their luck.

Many of the workers at the mining facility are Iadeten. They’re a parthenogenic species of generational travellers from the Gamma quadrant. One of their security officers meets Seven at the facility’s transporter platform when she beams in. The nameplate on the officer’s outfit identifies her as ‘Neket’. Like the rest of her species, Neket wears a mechanised EVA suit. It supports her brittle skeleton against the satellite's gravity, as most of her species’ lifetime is spent at zero-g.

There have been ongoing problems with adapting the Universal Translators to cope with the complexities of Iadeten speech. As a primarily telepathic species, Neket has trouble communicating verbally through the UT device. As a work-around, she attempts to establish a direct telepathic connection by linking with Seven's mind. But for some reason, all of Neket’s efforts at establishing a connection have failed.

Neket frowns after her second fruitless attempt. She tilts her head in confusion as she looks Seven over. When her gaze falls on Seven’s ocular implant and then Seven’s Borg-enhanced hand, she gasps in recognition. Neket points to her face shield, mirroring where Seven’s ocular implant would be, and asks, “That decoration is from the old collective, true?”

Seven nods, “I was Borg. Not anymore though...Why?”

Neket looks satisfied, like a person who’s just managed to put two and two together, and has finally come up with four instead of five.

“Small machines in your body: blocking the link,” Neket says, resorting to the universal translator, “I have had this difficulty before. My colleagues: others from the old collective. They also have decorations, in other places…it took a while to see. But I think they are like you. Same problem. I apologise. Linking is not possible.”

Seven waves the apology aside, relieved that an inability to use telepathic communication is the only issue. Satisfied that there is nothing to be done, Neket respectfully touches Seven’s arm and beckons the ranger to follow her.

Seven follows Neket to a room with a sign over the doorway that reads ‘Operations.’ The room is a grey walled rectangle, with banks of consoles humming along each wall. There’s a smooth, ovoid table with a holographic projection surface in the center of the room. Seven stops at one side of the central console, and Neket keeps on walking until she’s standing at the opposite end. They are joined by one of the facility’s operations staff, a wrinkle-faced human with the air of someone enjoying life, whom Neket introduces as Hammond.

There’s an unusual pause as Neket says something to Hammond telepathically. Hammond grins, shakes his head and relays the message to Seven.

“Neket wants to apologise, for the trouble with the linking. She’s worried that she might have offended you, by asking about your heritage."

He stops when Neket pokes at him, "– Oh, Borg heritage, she means.”

He pauses for a moment as Neket adds another comment through their link.

“She says their species have angered some of our Ex-Borg colleagues before, you know, trying to figure out why they couldn’t link to them. She really hopes she didn’t come across as being too insensitive.”

“No harm done,” Seven says.

Then she flashes her smile at both of them, trying to put Neket at ease, “-Though it’s been a while since my implants have been described as ‘decorations’. In fact…I’m not sure I’ve actually heard that one before.”

Neket shrugs, eyes smiling, through the translator she says, “Aesthetically pleasing. At first, I thought: fashion? The translator was literal, but did not lie.”

“Thanks,” Seven says, accepting the compliment.

She feels an urge to excuse her Ex-Borg compatriots’ offense, however, adding “I’m sorry about the others. They probably knew your questions were harmless. Assimilation is a difficult thing to live through.”

“We can’t even imagine,” Hammond says, speaking for both himself and the security officer.

“They’d probably like to meet you though,” Hammond says, “if you’d like to?”

“I could arrange a meeting. I suppose…” Seven says, “if there’s time.”

Neket has another message for Hammond to relay to Seven.

The man looks surprised, as though the security officer has contradicted him.

“Hmm, on second thought, that might be difficult. Neket reckons that they took a shuttle planet-side, a couple of days ago, to catch the transport across to Freecloud. We haven’t heard from them since. Apparently, they’ve both still got a few more days’ leave, so, security’s holding off on any particular concern for their wellbeing, until that window is up.”

He shrugs, picking up on Neket’s anxiety and Seven’s interest, “Heck, they could be having a great time on Freecloud, right? And just got carried away.”

He pats the shoulder of Neket’s mech-suit, “They’ll be back before you know it, happy as anything. They’ll have latinum pouring out their ears.”

Neket speaks through the translator, “I hope so. But I worry. Especially for those ones, they are so young!”

Hammond chuckles, explaining to Seven that the Iadeten are an extremely long-lived species, and thus compared to Neket, everyone is but a babe.

The security officer pokes Hammond in rebuke, rolling her eyes beneath her face shield.

“Ha-ha-ha,” Neket deadpans, “you are not a funny human, Hammond. I am barely old enough to have met my second-generation offspring.”

Satisfied with their comeback, Neket returns to the star map. Bringing up a schematic of the shipment’s flight path. A solid yellow line charts the course of the ore transport ship in an arc from the mining facility to the planet’s surface. Blue squares mark the positions of nearby asteroids where ambush raiders are most likely to hide, and a white-text display scrolls through the reports of known bandit activity in the area over the past few days.

“We should get to work,” says Neket.

The security officer beckons Seven to join her side of the table, in front of the star map, with an imperious wave.

“Come here, child.”

Seven smirks at Neket’s teasing and joins her in front of the star map. She looks up at the ship’s route and puts both hands on her hips. 

“Let’s talk tactics then,” Seven says, “what are the potential threats?”


	7. Seven does a good job and gets paid well for it. Everyone eats dinner. Rozyani misses the bus.

## \--- Fenris ---

Seven steps on to the civilian transport from the Orbital Station down to Dovetail City Spaceport two days after returning from Nas-Hujjar.

The mission itself went well. Seven patrolled the shipping route between the refinery planet and its satellite, keeping one eye on her radar, and the other on the stars. She only had to power up her small ship’s weapons once, when a particularly hard-headed trio of raiders were convinced that their number could take on Seven’s corsair. However, their lacklustre plan to dive straight in at the ore transport lacked finesse…and was barely a coherent plan at all. Seven only had to fire a few rounds over the lead ship’s bow to make the group pull up and run away.

The transport operator told Seven that the company was grateful for the Ranger’s assistance when she returned. They added a generous tip to Seven’s crediting account, alongside the agreed payment for the Fenris Rangers’ services.

Neket had called out to halt Seven just as she was preparing for beam-out. Seven had stopped and turned in question.

“Excuse me," Neket started, "Before you go, Ranger, I want to ask: you know my colleagues, the ones who are like you? They have been a long time now on holiday. So long away from work without informing: it is not like them,” she said. And then, “Hammond says they will be fine, but I am not so certain.”

Neket paused, her EVA suit reflecting the station’s lighting as she tilted her head.

“So, I was wondering, in case it is necessary, though hopefully it is not, – how to hire you as a vigilante?”

Seven dug into one of her jacket pockets and pulled out a clear plastic token with a silver chip at its center. The coin-sized octagon was attached through one edge to a thin metal keychain. She folded the token into Neket’s hand.

“This is an emergency contact beacon,” Seven explained, “If you ever need a vigilante, use it. One of us will come. If I am in range, then the responder will be me."

She stepped up onto the transporter pad before addressing the security officer again, "I hope they return soon."

Neket took the token.

“Thank you,” she said.

## \--- Dovetail City ---

The spaceport at Dovetail City is one of the busiest places on Fenris. Its skyscrapers shine glittering projections: advertisements and decorations, down onto the traffic-packed and rain-washed streets. The fast-moving layers of hovercars wind among the monoliths in frantic torrents. Down below the traffic, pedestrians hustle through a maelstrom of grav bikes and the occasional, misplaced hovercar.

Vendors hoot to draw Seven’s attention as she pushes along the pathway from the spaceport towards the entertainment district in order to meet up with Icheb, Bjayzl and their friends. The grav bike traffic jostles past on Seven’s right. Sometimes riders will pull out of the traffic and swerve blindly onto the footpath in order to stop and buy an item from a particularly enticing stall. Seven dodges around these obstacles with the sure-footed nimbleness of a local, a sign she makes home on the Fenris Orbital Station.

In this region of Fenris the hot rains fall early in the afternoon. She steps over rather than through the rubbish-crusted puddles at her feet. The regular rainfall flushes out the streets; collecting the detritus of the city’s inhabitants, and thrusting it down the stormwater drains. Out of mind, but not always out of sight.

Seven’s nervous, and excited, too. Tonight will be Bjayzl’s first official introduction to Icheb. That is, apart from their fleeting non-encounter after Icheb’s first, ill-timed comm call.

Looking over at the traffic, Seven spots a _Kwikbike_ driver and flags him over. The ten-minute taxi ride to the restaurant will be faster than making her way there entirely on foot. After tapping her credit chip to the driver’s reader, Seven accepts the courtesy passenger’s helmet, and swings one leg over the back of the grav bike. In one brisk movement, she kicks down the footrests on either side of the passenger seat, and grabs the bike’s rear handrail with one hand. Her driver nods at her ready, and turns their vehicle head-on into the chaos.

## \--- Dovetail City Old Quarter ---

When they reach the city’s Old Quarter, Seven slides off the bike and hands her helmet to the driver with a nod of thanks. He moves off, joining a rank of others wearing brightly-coloured polo shirts, with company names like _E-Z Hover_ and _Share Bike_. 

Seven looks around, seeking out any faces that she might recognise. The buildings in this area are shorter than their surroundings. The contrast makes their rooftops appear as low-lying islands from above, basking in the glitter of the circling city’s lights. A no-fly zone around the Old Quarter forces the torrents of hovercars make their detours around the perimeter, an endless stream of tail lights streaking through the darkness. If Seven were to look up into the night sky now, she’d find that the city’s light pollution would be bright enough to drown out the sea of stars. Fenris Orbital Station would be the only celestial object both close enough, and bright enough, to stay visible in the jet-black sky.

The restaurant where everyone is meeting is situated at the ground level of four intersecting roads. Like everywhere else in the Old Quarter, business is conducted amongst the tight-packed crowds and passing grav bikes. The ragged awnings and umbrellas tied across the spaces overhead keep off the majority of the region’s frequent rains. Living apartments are situated in the floors above street level. The broad gaps between the tired awnings offer glimpses into the lives of people in the apartments overhead. One concrete balcony hosts a cascade of bright, pink flowers. Their square, flat petals and fluttering leaves are bright points of colour against the feeble dark.

Seven looks away from the flowers on the high-up balcony and spots Bjayzl waiting next to a clear space of wall. She stands between the restaurant’s doorway and a brace of parked grav bikes. Her head is tilted downwards, her shiny brown hair making a dark curtain across her face. She’s an island of calm within the chaos, paying attention to nobody and scrolling through her comm.

Mischievous and amused, Seven weaves through the crush of pedestrians to meet her. She slips a stealthy hand around her lover’s waist and chuckles when the other woman looks up in surprise.

“Jay,” Seven smiles, leaning forward to kiss her.

Bjayzl tucks her comm away with a muffled little sigh. She curls a hand around the back of Seven's head, pulling her close. Bjayzl's lips are soft, and warm, and wonderful. Making Seven forget for a moment about being nervous and excited for their upcoming evening.

Seven sways against Bjayzl, moving further into the cradle of her lover’s arms. Now it’s Bjayzl’s turn to laugh at her girlfriend, in the moments after their kiss breaks. Seven makes a noise of protest as Bjayzl gently pushes her away with open palms.

“Hi Annika,” Bjayzl finally says, enjoying the way that they distract one-another.

Seven looks down and links their hands, idly twining their fingers.

“You nervous?” Seven asks, betraying her own state.

Bjayzl nods, but still smiles happily, “A little, perhaps,” she says, “but I think we’ll be ok.”

Seven smiles back, giving a little shrug of agreement as she looks past the grav bikes towards the restaurant entryway. There’s no doorway as such, just a large open space beyond the indoor kitchen area, that spills tables and customers out onto the nearby footpath. A waitperson winds amongst them. Taking orders on a small device that sends them directly to the steam-wreathed kitchen.

A second staff member carries the hot food out, the platters of food piled high in their arms. The chatter and clink of cutlery and conversation dances above the low grumble of grav bikes. Enticing smells from the restaurant draw both women’s attention, and Seven asks Bjayzl, “Do you know if the others are here yet?

The other woman doesn’t, shaking her head and saying, “No, I don’t think I’ve spotted anyone. Do you think I should go and grab us a table now while we wait?” Jay says.

Seven follows Bjayzl’s gaze back over to the busy restaurant, both women observing that the recently emptied tables are quickly reoccupied by the enthusiastic crowd.

“Definitely,” Seven says, “this place is pretty popular, they always fill the tables fast.”

Seven checks her comm unit for messages while Bjayzl goes to secure a table from the waitstaff. Rozyani has sent a written message to her comm, explaining that she was held up in mech-engineering and missed the shuttle that she wanted. So now she’s running late.

Icheb’s video message informs Seven that he’s en-route, and will be arriving soon. The Starfleet friend that he was going to bring couldn’t make it at the last minute. He’d eaten something earlier that day, and it is now strongly disagreeing with him.

Seven grimaces and rolls her eyes at Icheb’s description of his housemate’s food poisoning. It’s just like him, using his often-weird sense of humour to distract from an uncomfortable situation. It indicates his own apprehensiveness regarding his meeting Seven’s girlfriend. It gives Seven a measure of reassurance, knowing that she’s not the only one who’s nervous. As Icheb has said before, it’s been a long time since Seven was this invested in anyone.

Pocketing her comm unit, Seven turns and heads over to the table that Bjayzl has found for them. If it all gets too awkward, then at least Icheb and Rozyani get along like a house on fire. Maybe she and Jay can make a run for it while the pair of them are distracted cracking stupid jokes at one another.

“Yani’s running late and Icheb’s still coming. He’s almost here,” Seven says as she finally reaches the table.

Seven slides across the metal bench to her girlfriend’s side. Jay upends a polyglass tumbler, and pours a clear liquid into it from a tall green bottle. It smells faintly spicy, and Seven recognises the underlying scent of alcohol.

“A little liquid courage?” Seven asks.

Bjayzl smirks and nods. Filling her own tumbler, and tapping it against the side of Seven’s in cheers.

“Hell yes,” Bjayzl says.

Bjayzl coughs when the spices burn her sinuses, making Seven giggle into her drink. Soon enough, the Ex-Borg is also coughing in turn. This causes the pair of them to start laughing in earnest, each woman finding hilarity in the reactions of the other.

It is at that moment when Icheb finally wanders up to their table. He watches with consternation at the pair of women in front of him. Both are almost crying with laughter, heads bent in towards each-other, like a happy pair of fools.

It takes a moment for them to register his presence. Seven quickly stands up from the bench when she sees him. She wipes at her eyes and then pulls him into her arms in a long-awaited hug. 

“Icheb! It’s so good to see you,” she says honestly, and he returns the sentiment with conviction.

Then, it’s finally time to introduce Bjayzl, who smiles politely as Icheb looks her over. Seven winds an arm around her girlfriend, squeezing her a little in a show of support, before taking a deep breath, “...and this is Jay.”

Icheb grins, to Seven’s relief, and reaches along the table to shake hands with Bjayzl.

“It’s a pleasure,” he promises, and then adds wryly, “I actually…haven’t heard all that much about you. It’s harder to get anything personal out of Seven than it is to get a pearl out of a Denebian clam.”

He pauses, lightly catching Seven’s eye.

“But from what I have made out, I understand you’re both extremely happy. It’s a relief to know she’s finally found someone who’s good for her too,” he says.

“Thank you,” Bjayzl says as they release each other’s hands.

Her dark eyes dance over Icheb’s face. She lingers over the thin, silver implant that nestles against the ridge of Icheb’s nose, with what Seven interprets as polite interest.

The young man reaches up and touches his cranial implant reflexively, acknowledging Bjayzl’s unspoken question.

“Yeah, I was…I was assimilated when I was young,” Icheb explains.

"Oh, of course," Bjayzl says, through an amicable smile that shows even, white teeth.

Then, “My apologies for staring – I was curious. I find those implants quite beautiful in their own way…so unique,” she finishes.

Icheb shrugs it off, “It’s quite alright. No harm done.”

Then he looks at all the busy tables, laden with platters in different stages of disarray, and asks with an encouraging clap, “shall we eat?”


	8. There are spaceships on Vergessen. Bjayzl rubs her hand. Icheb smells of swamp gas.

## \--- Dovetail City Old Quarter---

Rozyani arrives later in the evening. The others have caved in against waiting any longer. They’ve already ordered food, and have started to eat.

Icheb has a half-empty plate in front of him. The detritus of the local specialty is piled at one end. Its territory is encroaching methodically towards the untouched portion of his plate. He smacks his lips and makes absent little noises of pleasure while he’s eating, which Seven is not sure that he’s fully aware of.

Seven and Bjayzl have a second bottle of spice wine open. It sits in a circle of condensation near Jay’s elbow, having been shifted to make way for the shallow bowl of spiced groundnuts placed between them. Their fingers brush together whenever they both reach for its contents at the same time.

Yani hefts the bag she’s carrying down onto the bench beside Icheb with a grunt. It lands solidly; releasing an exhale of air. It smells strongly of overdue laundry and machine oil. The cinched cord at the top of the bag loosens, and one cuff of the crumpled jumpsuit that she would normally be wearing tumbles out.

Seven eyes her friend with suspicion, surprised to witness the mechanic in anything other than her usual work attire. Yani leans over to steal some groundnuts from Bjayzl, and catches Seven lingering at the low-scooped neckline of her shirt. She raises an eyebrow at Seven’s examination and then drops down next to Icheb, tipping the handful of groundnuts into her mouth.

“I was beginning to think you never took that jumpsuit off,” Seven teases, leaning out of the way as Bjayzl reaches over the table, offering to pour spice wine into Yani’s glass.

Yani nods her thanks to Bjayzl, then scoffs at Seven’s snark.

“You devote way too much energy thinking about what I may or may not be wearing, Annika,” she counters, “Why not focus some of that on your girlfriend? She might get jealous.”

Seven curves an arm around Jay with an expression of saccharine devotion. Her dewy-eyed smouldering makes Bjayzl laugh into her drink.

“But she has my full attention nearly all the time,” Seven protests, then adds with faux-sweetness, “right Honey?”

Bjayzl returns Seven’s gaze with deliberate smugness as she joins in on the game.

“Oh, I can’t complain…” Bjayzl says.

The exaggerated display of coupledom provokes the desired reaction from their audience. At the same moment that Yani starts groaning that the pair of them are ‘so cute it’s disgusting’, Icheb makes an embarrassed bid rescue their conversation.

He nudges Yani with his elbow. Effectively derailing her mutiny.

“-So, uh, what took you so long to get here anyway?” he asks.

“Ugh. Work,” Yani moans, leaning forward and hunching her shoulders.

“Some rock-headed Ranger got blasted, while checking in with Glidden’s Landing,” she says.

She looks across at Bjayzl and Seven, who have stopped trying to annoy her and are giving her their full attention.

“You know the one?” Yani asks them.

Seven nods. The holo of the missing couple that she took from the pod is still in her possession. It’s sitting in the third drawer down from the countertop inside her kitchen. The one that always seems to be the parking place for random objects; no matter where you are across the universe. They smile obliviously from their resting place whenever she opens that drawer, in search of some necessary tool. Their faces are familiar now from repeated viewing. Seven is yet to muster up the will to put their holo through her replicator’s ‘recycle’ setting.

Seven looks at Yani with intent, “Do they know who was firing?”

At the same time, Icheb asks, “Could it have been Kar Kantar?”

“That petty warlord?” Yani says.

Rozyani is unconvinced, “No. They said the ship was big. Like a freighter or something, but better armed. It looked expensive too, apparently– maybe even brand new…or close enough. I had a quick look at the corsair’s black box footage. Just out of curiosity, you know?”

Both Seven and Icheb lean forward. Bjayzl clasps her hands, the thumb of the one on top rubbing circles over the back of the other. The pressure she’s exerting makes the pink blush of her nailbed turn pearly white.

“- And?” both Ex-Borg prompt, when Rozyani doesn’t continue fast enough.

The mechanic shrugs. Her eyes following Bjayzl’s thumb as it circles round and around.

“Well I’m no specialist,” Yani says, “but it looked to me like the ship came off Vergessen. Which…well, you know, it might be possible, but-”

Seven catches Yani’s meaning and finishes the sentence with her “-it doesn’t make any sense.”

Bjayzl tucks her hands into her lap. From there, her fidgeting is hidden from Rozyani and Icheb by the long edge of the table. 

“Who has that data now?” Bjayzl asks, and Seven is wondering the same thing.

Rozyani waves her fingers skyward, in the general direction of the Orbital Station. Whether she’s indicating the flight deck, or some other location, it’s hard to say.

“Oh, it’s just in my office,” Yani says, “I’ll hand it to the specialists tomorrow in case the Rangers want to do anything about it. I can let them know you’re interested in their results if you like?”

Icheb listens to their conversation with a confused expression, as Seven agrees to the offer of information.

He lifts one hand in a halting gesture, “Hang on, wait, wait – There’s one thing I don’t understand.”

He pauses, as the three women’s attention shifts to him, “why doesn’t it make sense for a ship to be based on Vergessen? The planet’s habitable, isn’t it?”

Yani makes a so-so movement with one hand, “Hmm…barely. I think I once read that the remains of the last people to live there died out when the planet’ geology went crazy...volcanoes and earthquakes. That sort of thing, you know?”

Bjayzl joins in. She's unexpectedly, though impressively knowledgeable about the system’s outermost planet.

“Yes, the atmosphere is hospitable. But there’s a high risk of hypoxia without the proper equipment. On top of that, the majority of the environments there are still quite hostile. That habitability comes with a price,” Bjayzl says.

Yani nods, confirming Bjayzl’s report.

“…I heard the only truly-habitable regions are the marsh-lands, and even those are filled with ridiculous levels of swamp gas. You'd be a lunatic to land a ship there,” Yani says.

Yani leans back with relish, ticking off a litany of problems on her fingers.

“Hydrogen sulphide, carbon dioxide, methane: toxic, poisonous and explosive.” She grins at Icheb impishly, “-also smells like rotten eggs…bit like you Icheb, actually.”

The four of them are drunk enough on spice wine to find the puerile joke funny. Icheb makes a face at Seven, as she leans her head on Jay’s shoulder in half-drunk mirth. He raises his eyebrow at Rozyani, “Really, Yani?”, and then looks to Seven in appeal.

Seven smirks at him, her blue eyes twinkling, “Hmm, sorry Icheb. Having lived with you on Voyager…the limited air in that cargo bay-” she winces in exaggeration, “I must say, she’s not wrong.”

The young man rolls his eyes, lifting his drink in a mocking toast.

“Thanks, Seven,” he says, “I’m disowning you.”

“Ah well,” Seven laments, “at least Jay still loves me.”

*

Their conversation quietens for a while as one of the waiters brings their main course to the table. They all pounce on it, making sounds of appreciation as the food goes down. Seven feels a rush of affection to see her favourite people get along. Bjayzl was right, they really had nothing to worry about.

Right now, they’re interested in Icheb’s future plans.

“How long will you be in the area?” Bjayzl asks him. She’s trying but failing to keep her gaze from drifting to his ocular implant.

Rozyani chimes in, “Yeah, is Starfleet finally giving you a break?”

She winks gleefully in Seven’s direction, with a grin that is sparkling and mischievous.

“Your mama misses you. -Ow!”

She winces when Seven kicks her shin beneath the table, but looks pleased with herself anyway - “Annika _, jeez_.” - She bends sideways to rub at the injury. It won’t even bruise…it was totally worth it.

A little half-smile tugs at Icheb’s face.

“Actually, I’ve decided to take a few months off,” Icheb says, watching for Seven’s reaction as the information sinks in.

“Really?” Seven says, looking delighted, “for how long?”

“Two months. I cleared it with the Coleman’s XO a few days ago, actually,” he answers, “I wanted it to be a surprise.”

“-and where will you stay?” Bjayzl asks.

Icheb smiles at everyone, enjoying their attention. 

“I’m staying near the old quarter with a friend,” he says. Then he tilts his head, addressing Seven, “You know, Eden? He was going to come tonight, but the food poisoning…”

Icheb trails off with an amused grimace. Then he changes track, “I was actually hoping that I could do some work with the Fenris Rangers while I was down here. I wondered if you might be able to help me with that…?”

Seven nods, thinking about who they’ll need to contact.

“I’m sure it’s possible,” she says, “leave it with me for a day and I’ll see what can be arranged.”


	9. A Ferengi acts expectedly. Icheb adds ‘hacker’ to his resume. Seven walks quickly.

## \--- Ice Fields Station ---

Icheb’s first few missions as a volunteer for the Fenris Rangers are executed in the company of more experienced employees. Seven accompanies him on his third mission. They fly their ships out to the Hypatian Ice Fields, where Dispatch says they have a new client to meet.

The space station hangs a short distance away from the ice fields. The station’s largest section is devoted to the promenade. Its curved glass walls and ceiling form a stretched hemispherical dome, the two opposite ends rounding out like the points on a lemon.

The station’s promenade is a busy place. It’s not as hectic as Fenris Orbital’s, but it’s still throbbing with activity. Not many people actually live here long-term. The station is more like a beauty spot for interstellar travellers on their way elsewhere.

A bank of advertising panels accosts the new arrivals as they step through the docking port and onto the promenade. They offer a variety of diversions for the weary spirit. Offspring can be unloaded at the holodecks, or in the play park. Pampering and relaxation occurs in the multi-level hanging gardens, with views of the ice fields sparkling beyond. At least four different companies are trying to entice customers to take a cruise: ‘ _Experience the Hypatian Ice Fields Up Close!_ ’ is a common theme. All of them promise the finest experience, the greatest luxury _. The fifth wonder of the Hypatia system is just a credit-chip tap away!_

The pair move through the milling travellers, taking one of the turbolifts to the upper levels, where their client has arranged the rendezvous. They’re closer to the glass-domed roof now, with its expansive view of space. Seven stalls at the window, nearly causing Icheb to walk into her. He wards off their collision by bracing his hand against her shoulder blade. His blurted apology at his inattention fades to silence as he, too, is captivated by the scene outside.

The view frames a shifting, crystalline sea. It’s not a blanket of white, more like a floating haze: particles of frozen water reflecting solid-white in some parts, others barely outlined against the vacuum-dark. The cold jewels shift and turn, pushed by ionic winds that herd their rough-cut edges into new and interesting patterns.

“Hey you!”

A brash voice shatters the hush of contemplation. Seven startles, turning her head sharply towards the commotion. Other travellers also pause in curiosity, casting subversive glances in their direction. Pretending not to be interested in whatever’s going on.

“Yes, you! Are you lobeless halfwits the Fenris Rangers?”

A short, angry man pushes his way towards them. He moves with a determination that makes the onlookers part as though they aren’t even there. He’s Ferengi. The top of his head is a strange, two-lumped thing. Seven is reminded of…. well, of a wide pair of buttocks. He has leathery brown-skin with a waddling gait. Half-moon ears, each with concentric ridges like a stack of dinner plates, stick out at right angles from either side of his mean, round face.

Seven turns, noting with satisfaction from the corner of her eye that Icheb moves in unison with her. It’s appropriately dramatic. Seven meets the challenge with disdain.

“We are,” Seven says, “can we assist you?”

The Ferengi flashes tangle of pin-sharp teeth.

“You’re damned right you can,” he snarls, and then, mysteriously, “What are you lot going to do about my ship?”

It takes Seven some considerable effort not to look confused. Luckily, after having spent long years on Voyager learning about the baffling variety of humanoid behaviour, her expression is merely unconcerned.

“Your ship?” she asks.

Beside her, Icheb tilts his head.

“Explain,” Icheb says.

“My ship!” the man wails, successfully explaining nothing, “the _Lady Melba_.”

The vessel’s name is only slightly more useful. Seven raises her eyebrow, a wordless prompt that he should continue. The short Ferengi lets out an expressive sigh. A mix of impatience and frustration makes his words spill out with a sing-song cadence.

“A bunch of hijackers got on board it and took some people away. Now the customers are frightened and they want their money back! My latinum,” he exclaims, his voice shrill and rising. He stabs his fingers inwards, towards his barrel-chest, “ _mine_!”

Seven frowns, “So we need to rescue them.”

The Ferengi groans in exasperation, as though he can’t believe that such a simple transaction can be this difficult.

“No, I want you to protect my investment!” he says.

“I want you to go out there,” he gestures in the general direction of the station’s promenade, “and stop those people from taking my money back! Do you understand?”

The squat little alien is growing more frantic now, his arm movements becoming more erratic.

“The abductees are irrelevant. Just some random people with all that Ex-Borg shit on their faces. Good riddance. I say. What are you going to do about _my latinum_?!” he says.

Seven and Icheb regard him with surprise, reacting to both the Ferengi’s xenophobic vitriol, and to his unreasonable request. Retrieving hostages is run-of-the-mill work for the Fenris Rangers, but the demand that this Ferengi is making of them is… _highly unusual_.

Seven leans back on one hip, crossing her arms in a contemplative gesture. “You’re saying that you don’t want us to rescue anyone, but you do want us to get your money back,” she says.

The dryness of her tone would make a Vulcan envious.

“Yes!” The Ferengi says, nodding emphatically, relieved at having finally got his point across, “to protect my investment!”

Seven raises her eyebrow and flicks a glance across her shoulder at Icheb. The Starfleet officer steps forward. He clasps his hands behind his back. The Ferengi takes an involuntary step backwards, which was Icheb’s intent.

“Collecting arrears is not in the Rangers’ directive,” Icheb says, “Perhaps your concerns would be better served by an audience with the FCA.”

The Ferengi scowls. It’s an easy task on such a wizened face. He steps in towards Icheb menacingly, poking a blue-clawed finger at the ranger’s chest.

“What would you know about the Ferengi Commerce Authority?” he demands.

Icheb and Seven share a glance, a movement which the Ferengi notices, only now finally registering the remnant Borg technology on both their faces. He crosses his arms over his chest, and bares his yellowing teeth at them.

“Oh, I see,” he says, gesturing at the implants, “Borg, huh?”

Neither Icheb nor Seven reply, and so the Ferengi continues, completely oblivious to the fact that he’s on a tangent of his own making.

“So, I guess you’re gonna try and intimidate me with some nasty threats about assimilation into the Collective unless I talk. Is that how it is?” the Ferengi says.

Seven makes a ‘calm down’ gesture with her hand.

“Ex-Borg,” she corrects, “and no-one here is getting assimilated, Mister-” she pauses, raising her chin to prompt the little man into filling in the sentence.

“-Rill,” the Ferengi says.

“-Mister Rill,” Seven finishes, with a calming deep breath, “at least, not today.”

Seven can already see that she and Icheb will need to take a different approach. It was, ironically, unreasonable to assume that they could be reasoning was an option with a Ferengi.

Seven taps in to whatever memories she has of the Ferengi she assimilated during her time in the collective. It’s with that perspective that she stretches out an arm, and guides their client over to the edge of the promenade, where the neutrally-carpeted floor meets the arching window.

Seven looks down over the edge of the platform, as much as is possible with the window in the way. If they crane their necks far enough, she knows that they will be able to see the cruise liners docked at the airlocks down below.

“Look, Mister Rill,” she says, “As Fenris Rangers, we can’t help directly with recovering your company’s costs.”

She holds up a silencing finger when the Ferengi takes a breath to complain.

“But we can help with, say, raising your company’s public profile by looking into those hostages,” says Seven.

“Abductees,” says Rill.

“Whatever,” says Seven, “What I’m saying is, you give us a little help. For example…in the form of your passenger list, and we help you out with getting you a little good PR. Everyone will know that you take your customers’ safety seriously. It’ll be good for business!”

Seven makes an expansive gesture across the promenade, “Everybody benefits.”

The Ferengi considers this, following the sweep of Seven’s arm across the promenade, and then turning around to observe the cruise liners again.

“It’s a stupid idea,” Rill says bluntly, because it is in his nature, “But I suppose that it’s the only one.”

Rill looks slyly at the Fenris Rangers from the corner of his eye, “Of course, it’s gonna cost you.”

Seven simply nods. She’d anticipated this.

“Very well, Mister Rill,” says Seven.

She makes eye contact with Icheb, to make sure he’s listening, “-If you’d be kind enough to meet us later somewhere, more privately, we’ll discuss our finances.”

There’s a greedy glint in the Ferengi’s eye as he rattles off a time at his offices where the rangers can meet him later. Then he hustles off to his offices, leaving Seven and Icheb to watch in his wake.

Icheb turns to Seven with an intrigued expression with an amused eyebrow raised.

“You’re planning something,” he says, turning the question into a statement.

Seven scoffs, “Barely. Whatever deal that Ferengi has in mind, though, we’ll never be able to afford it. But we need to get that passenger list.”

She looks out the window for a moment, considering her idea and not really seeing anything.

“How are your hacking skills?” says Seven.

“Well…they’re not really standard Starfleet training, but they’re passable. We seem to need to hack into systems often enough…” says Icheb.

He suddenly sees where Seven’s plan is going, “You want to steal the passenger list during the meeting?”

“Yes,” Seven grimaces, aware that the idea has significant risks, “I figure it’s better than nothing.”

*

Later, Seven walks briskly out of the meeting at _Rill’s Luxury Cruiseline_ s offices, tugging her jacket straighter, and trying not to look like she’s making a getaway. She and Icheb had better get a move on, because soon the Ferengi is going to realise that she’s paid him with latinum, from an account that doesn’t exist. Icheb joins her as she rounds onto the promenade, matching his pace with Seven’s as he meets her with a nod.

“Did you find anything?” Seven asks, as they hurry to put some distance between themselves and the Ferengi’s offices.

Icheb nods, leaning in towards Seven’s ear to maintain their confidences.

“The abducted passengers were all definitely Ex-Borg, no doubt about it,” Icheb says.

Seven hums pensively, “Anything else?”

Icheb stops them in an alcove where they’re unlikely to be seen or overheard.

“I was looking through their transaction records. There’s something weird happening, but I’m not sure whether the Ferengi is in on it. The company had a series of sizable payments from an account based on Freecloud,” says Icheb.

He shakes his head when Seven frowns at him. Bank accounts based on Freecloud are a fairly common thing.

“No, hear me out,” he continues urgently, “In the past few months, each of those payments has been made from that same account, whenever one of the company’s passengers was Ex-Borg.”

“How do you know?” Seven asks.

Icheb steps closer, huddling them into the shadow of the alcove, looking over his shoulder suspiciously.

“The company requires that their customers upload photographic ID when they’re booking a cruise. I cross-checked the transaction dates against the passenger lists for those times,” says Icheb.

He stops to take a breath, punctuating his sentences with a sharp movement of his hands, pointing his index finger at his palm, “They were Ex-Borg. Every time. Another one of those transactions from Freecloud was delivered to the _Luxury Cruiseline’s_ account: _today_.”

“Shit,” says Seven, remembering something, and grabs Icheb’s arm as they hear distant shouts bearing down on their position. She turns and tugs him along beside her in the direction of their corsairs.

“There’s someone I’d forgotten about. We need to talk to her,” she says tightly, “she had Ex-Borg colleagues who went to Freecloud on holiday. We need to check if they ever came back.”

Icheb looks at her sharply, “What is it?”

Seven frowns and grinds her teeth.

“I’m not sure. But I have a theory. And I don’t like it. …I think somebody’s hunting Borg,” she says.

The shouts get louder, a far-off voice commanding them to stop. The gasp and twitter of onlookers muttering in alarm.

Together, they pick up their pace.

“First we need to get out of here.”


	10. Neket takes a comm call. Seven orders an alien around. People fail to do the dishes.

## \--- Habitat Ring ---

The atmosphere is tight with apprehension as Seven sends through a comm request to Nas-Hujjar. The flight back from the Ice Fields station took the better part of four hours, and the fatigue in her body is starting to make itself known. The call is initially answered by one of Neket’s colleagues, but they quickly go and fetch the security officer when Seven asks for her by name.

Neket clanks onto the display of Seven’s vid-screen, her brushed-metal EVA suit shining.

“Ranger,” Neket says when she sees Seven’s face.

The transmission makes the alien sound tinny and distant. Her voice echoes against her faceplate. Then she looks to Icheb, “And who are you?” she asks.

“Icheb. Hello. I work with Seven,” Icheb says.

Neket nods once in greeting and addresses Seven again. Her manner is brisk and businesslike.

“Ranger. I was hoping to hear from you. About my colleagues-” Neket starts.

Seven folds her hands behind her back. Her expression is serious, though like Icheb standing beside her, her posture is at ease. 

“-Actually, yes,” Seven interrupts, “About that.”

Seven hesitates, in part, because she’s nervous about what Neket’s answer might be. She clenches her fist and asks anyway, “Have they returned?”

Neket bows her head, her helmet gleaming as it catches the overhead lights. 

“I regret they have not. Do you have news of them?” she asks.

Seven pulls her teeth over her bottom lip. “Possibly,” she says.

There are two muffled thumps as the security officer places her gloved hands on the desk, leaning forwards with interest.

“You have found something?” says Neket.

“A working theory,” Seven says, “We need to check it.”

She gestures to Icheb standing next to her, “Today we found some evidence that might indicate Ex-Borg are being targeted. Kidnapped.”

Neket sits up, surprised.

“Why?” says Neket.

“I don’t know. Not yet, anyhow. The clues are circumstantial. – It might all just be a coincidence. But…” says Seven.

“…once is never, twice is always,” Icheb murmurs, recalling something from a book he read.

The security officer turns her head to look at him from the vid-screen. The book that Icheb’s referencing is a popular one in this sector of the galaxy. She gets the gist of Icheb’s meaning. Her expression is inscrutable beneath all her body armour, but even that can’t disguise the note of worry that worms its way into her voice.

“You suspect my colleagues were kidnapped?” says Neket.

Seven’s gaze drops to her feet, wordlessly apologetic, “I think we need to check their home. Do you know where they live?”

Neket reaches across her table to manipulate another screen which Seven and Icheb cannot see.

The comm link picks up the sound of the unseen computer chirping feedback noises as The security officer enters data into it. After a minute, Neket turns back to the main screen before standing up.

“I do now,” she says, “There is a camera on my EVA suit. I can use it to show you what I see when we get there.”

The screen briefly darkens and then switches perspective, as Neket transfers the transmission to the visual feed from her helmet. The mining facility is now visible to them through Neket’s eyes.

“Are you ready?” Neket asks.

## \--- Nas-Hujjar ---

The video feed from Neket’s helmet camera stops outside a tired old looking apartment near the medina of Nas-Hujjar. It’s a two-storied building, with peeling stucco that would have been yellower in its halcyon days. Now the structure slouches against the neighbours like a drunken friend, rumpled and crumbling.

Neket tries the handle on the rust-brown door.

“It’s locked,” she says. Her voice is distorted through her helmet’s speakers, “I will try an override.”

Seven has dropped down on the armchair next to Icheb. Her tired legs have started aching at the thought of standing for much longer, and she rubs her knuckles against the top of her thighs, massaging the fatigue away. Both Ex-Borg hold their breath as they watch Neket coax the door’s locking mechanism to cycle from red to green. They see a view of Neket’s booted feet, and then her armoured hand reaching out to push open the door.

The house is dark inside, making the camera feed go blind until the security officer can fumble the lights open in the unfamiliar house.

“It’s very clean,” Neket observes, the video feed taking a sweeping appraisal of the room just beyond the doorway, as she looks around.

Seven squints, trying to take in details as they swing by under Neket’s gaze. There are glimpses of objects around the house that speak to the interests of the people who lived there. There are well-loved house plants in colourful pots. A stringed instrument on a music stand, its fretboard gathering dust.

“Wait, Neket. Go back,” says Seven.

The camera whips over Neket’s shoulder. The movement is instinctive, as though the security officer is responding to someone standing next to her, when Seven’s voice sounds in her ear.

“Go where?” Neket asks.

Seven points at the kitchen area on her vid-screen, and then remembers that Neket cannot see her.

“The kitchen area,” Seven clarifies, “I think there’s something in the sink.”

“Alright,” says Neket.

They hear the muffled thumping of Neket’s boots along the living room carpet and then sharper against the tiled kitchen floor. The angle of the camera is a little bit too high when Neket arrives at the sink, but she tilts her head down further when Seven asks her to correct it.

“Unwashed dishes?” Icheb asks. He shoots a questioning look at Seven from his perch on the armchair.

The camera scans the spotless kitchen as Neket looks around.

“Out of place in such a tidy house,” Neket says, looking down at the dishes with their old crusting of food sitting in the sink.

“Most people would probably clean up after themselves before heading out, if they were leaving for a while…?” Icheb says, when Seven says nothing.

Neket seems to be waiting too, because the feed on the vid-screen wanders down towards the floor, not looking at anything in particular. They can see her shifting her bodyweight as her boots move against the parquet tile.

There’s a tight knot of worry at the base of Seven’s chest, knowing with a deep sense of foreboding where they should seek the next piece of evidence. Sure, the crime scene at Glidden’s Landing was a violent one, whereas this house is undisturbed and serene. But like the owners of the pod on that far away satellite, this house’s inhabitants are absent too. Seven clenches her fist tight and presses it into the muscle above her knee, hard enough to make it hurt.

Her voice is hard and bleak, “We have to check the comms panel, Neket.”

“Very well,” Neket replies.

The security officer raises her head, making the feed on the vid-screen level again. She moves across the room until she’s standing by the central control panel for the house.

“Scratches here,” Neket says, pointing to a set of greying gouges in the white paint, and adding further to Seven’s apprehension of what they’ll find inside.

“Open it,” says Seven.

Neket opens the control panel and pulls out the house’s comms array. They hear Neket give a grunt of surprise, in time with Seven’s resigned sigh.

“Echo device,” Neket pokes at the little black box, “You expected this?”

“I was hoping to be wrong,” Seven says.

Icheb looks between Seven and the vid-screen, his eyebrows wrinkling. “What are you talking about?” He asks, gesturing at the screen, “I mean, why?”

Seven takes a deep breath in and lets it out again. Neither Icheb nor Neket know about the device she found at Glidden’s Landing, so she takes a moment to fill them in.

“Maybe a month or two ago, I responded to a distress call from a couple based at Glidden’s Landing,” She says, “they were Ex-Borg. When I got there, they were already gone. I found signs of a struggle, and, an Echo device.”

She motions with her chin towards the vid screen, watching the same sense of foreboding widen Icheb’s eyes. They can hear Neket’s breathing quicken inside her EVA suit.

“Could you track it?” Neket asks.

“Nothing. The whole building – and the device inside it – were destroyed before I could analyse it.”

“Suspicious indeed,” Neket muses. Then she looks towards the kitchen and starts walking towards it.

“We will not be stopped so easily this time, Ranger,” she says, with confidence.

“My colleagues used tricorders daily. They will have one somewhere about this place,” she reaches the kitchen and starts opening drawers, reaching in to the third drawer down with a soft noise of triumph.

Neket holds the tricorder up to her visor, so that her audience can see it over the video feed, “Let us get to work,” she says.

Seven holds her breath as Neket activates the tricorder and runs a scan of the signal from the Echo device. The compact machine makes reassuring beeping noises as it runs through various diagnostics. The time it takes to complete its analysis feels both interminably long, and yet not long enough.

Eventually, the security officer looks up, bringing the tricorder’s read out into the view of her face plate.

Her voice sounds mystified as she reads out the result.

“It’s transmitting to Freecloud,” she says.


	11. Seven gets a hug from Bjayzl. Rozyani laughs at Icheb’s bag. Icheb gets into a spacecraft.

## \--- Habitat Ring ---

 _What the hell is happening on Freecloud_?

The thought keeps Seven from sleeping, despite her exhaustion. Icheb went home to Dovetail City hours ago, but Seven had one last thing to figure out. The Ex-Borg passengers on the Ferengi’s cruise line: Seven got Icheb to load their names onto her hand terminal before he headed home, and spent time searching for every one of them using the Fenris Ranger’s database. The database was nothing like as sophisticated as Starfleet’s, but it was clear that there had the accounts have been inactive for days, months even.

_What was the relationship between the Ex-Borg and the Freecloud transmissions?_

Bjayzl came back from her late shift some time after Icheb’s departure, murmuring apologies as she slid into their bed. Her skin was still cool from the station’s air conditioning as she curled herself around Seven’s back, and pressed her forehead into the base of Seven’s neck, resting there.

The thought about the passengers, and their long periods of inactivity: _What happened to them? Where are they?_

Now, Seven exhales into her lover’s embrace, trying to clear her head and capture sleep.

But she can’t stop thinking.

_Were Ex-Borg being hunted, really? For what purpose?_

Jay’s arm flexes around her waist, a gentle squeeze intended to reassure and calm. Her voice is sleep-rough when she asks her lover why she isn’t sleeping. Her elegant fingers stroke the skin beneath Seven’s breasts, underneath the fabric of her loose t-shirt, – comforting in their intimacy.

“Annika I can hear you thinking,” Bjayzl murmurs. “Is it something you want to tell me about?”

Seven tangles their bare legs together and tugs Bjayzl’s arm tighter around her like a blanket. She snuggles back against her lover’s body, cradling Bjayzl’s hand in hers, against her chest. The sound that comes from Seven’s mouth is contemplative.

“Hmm,” Seven says.

Bjayzl adjusts her body against the pillows. Seven feels her moving her free arm against the mattress, propping her head against one hand and dropping a kiss onto the curve of Seven’s shoulder.

“What is it darling?” Bjayzl asks, “Let me help.”

Seven sighs and turns to face her, readjusting her position and curling back into Bjazyl’s embrace. Bjayzl strokes her fingers through Seven’s hair. Then traces the starburst implant on the side of Seven’s face. Seven talks into the warm, safe darkness between them, her brows drawn together in a frown.

“Icheb and me,” she starts, and Bjayzl hums to show she’s listening, “today we found…evidence, I guess-”

“Of what?” asks Jay.

“-It sounds idiotic,” Seven says, hesitating.

Bjayzl touches Seven’s shoulder, chidingly, “Annika, you can trust me.”

Seven nods, and sighs again, “Yes, yes. I know.”

She kisses Bjayzl, hugs her close.

She takes a breath, “I think we’re being hunted. Ex-Borg, I mean. I don’t know why, or by whom. But Icheb found some records in a client’s database which looked a lot like someone was paying off the client’s company for information on passengers who were Ex-Borg. The Ferengi who owned the company mentioned some of his passengers went missing, also Ex-B’s, but he wouldn’t tell us anything more, so we uh – took the information,” she says.

There’s a fond laugh, and Bjayzl strokes her fingers through Seven’s hair. The motion is soothing, “You rebel,” she says.

“Hah, yeah,” Seven shrugs. “So anyway, the whole thing reminded me of that mission I took after Glidden’s Landing, you remember?” Seven waits for Bjayzl’s nod, “I met a security officer when I was over there who was worried because some of her colleagues were missing – they were Ex-Borg too. I’d almost forgotten about it until tonight. So, we called her and got her to check out her colleagues’ apartment. Obviously, we didn’t find them there, - they still haven’t come back from wherever they went. But we did find something…”

There’s a fragile moment of tension as Bjayzl’s fingers stutter in mid-stroke, tangling in Seven’s hair. Seven feels her lover shifting away slightly to look at her.

“Annika…what did you find?” Bjayzl asks.

“Another Echo device. Like the one at Glidden’s Landing. I don’t…quite understand it yet, I mean, why it was doing it – or even its significance…but the device was transmitting to Freecloud.”

Bjayzl presses her lips against the crown of Seven’s head and tightens her arms around her lover’s body in an allegory of a hug. Her murmur is muffled against Seven’s hair, so Seven can’t be sure of it, but the next word to come from Bjayzl’s mouth sounds a lot like “ _Incompetents_.”

Seven wriggles just a little to make the limbs around her loosen, and after a moment, Bjayzl’s fingers return to their gentle stroking through her hair.

“What do you mean ‘incompetent’?” Seven wonders.

Bjayzl pauses, then says, “Hmm? oh…nothing. I was just thinking, if you’re right about this, and the Ex-B’s are being kidnapped, then whoever is doing this is not very good at their job.”

“Oh,” Seven says, feeling her eyelids closing now that she’s gotten her worries off her chest. It’s amazing what a difference it makes to just talk things out. She relaxes into Bjayzl’s side, feeling her lover stretching out beside her.

Bjayzl kisses Seven good night.

“We’ll look into it tomorrow, Annika,” she says, as Seven finally starts drifting off, “Sleep now.”

## \--- Flight Deck ---

“Here,“ says Seven.

Seven thrusts a canvas bag full of…odds and ends into Icheb’s arms when she meets him the next morning. He’s on his way out to the flight deck. Rozyani is sauntering amicably at his side, with a covered _raktajino_ in one hand. It’s Icheb’s first mission alone as a voluntary Fenris Ranger, and Seven wanted to make sure he’d have all the equipment he’d need. It’s not a _big_ bag, as such…but it does contain all of the things that Seven has found to come in handy on away missions in the past.

…And maybe some other spare things, too. Just in case.

Noting the expressions of shock on both Icheb and Yani’s faces, however, Seven wonders if she maybe went a little overboard…

Seven raises her eyebrow and inclines her head at Icheb’s questioning glance. She looks down at the bag that he’s holding in his hands. The heavy weight of it at the end of the shoulder strap pendulums to-and-fro, bouncing comically off his knee with every swing.

“What’s in here?” Icheb wonders.

“- Supplies,” Seven states, refusing to feel sheepish under Rozyani’s incredulous stare, “For your first mission,” she clarifies, “I did not want you to be unprepared.”

There’s a wet and muffled snuffling next to Icheb as Rozyani tries her hardest not to snort with laughter. When she recovers, she grins widely and wipes tears of mirth from her eyes, “Oh Prophets, Annika. Did you make him a packed lunch and put a jumper in there for him too?” she says.

Yani nearly spills her _raktajino_ as she reaches out to put her hand on Seven’s shoulder.

“You’re such a mama looking after her baby bear. Honestly, some days you are seriously just _too_ cute!” Yani says.

Seven scowls at that accusation, and steals the mechanic’s cup as punishment.

“Shut up,” Seven says, with mock severity. She takes a sip of the confiscated drink. The beverage is lukewarm and frankly, not that great, but the hit of caffeine is really what Seven’s after in order to remedy her sleepless night _._

 _And anyway, Rozyani doesn’t deserve to keep it_ , she decides, as her expression causes Yani to start snickering again, _not with that attitude_ …

“I also made sure he has a spare change of socks and underwear in there too,” Seven deadpans, “I stitched his name onto the back of them myself.” 

Seven pauses for effect, adding dryly, “So that the other Rangers don’t steal them.”

Icheb smothers a grin at the two of them and graciously puts the bag over his shoulders.

“Thanks, Seven,” he says, “I’m sure they’ll all be useful.” And then he adds, because he can’t resist, “the underpants too.”

Rozyani starts cackling again, and Seven sighs in their direction.

“Naturally,” says Seven.

They wander as a group to the station’s flight deck. They follow yellow safety lines marked out on the floor, towards the ship that Yani’s crew have been fixing up for Icheb’s mission. Yani nudges Icheb’s arm with her elbow as they round the nose of a waiting starship. Some of Yani’s staff push a trolley full of spare parts across their path. One of the flight crew waves at Yani with a ‘ _hey boss’_ as the trio wait for them to roll past. Rozyani waves back at her crew person and focuses back on their conversation.

“So, where are you headed on this mission?” the mechanic asks Icheb, once the squeal of the trolley’s wheels on the flight deck has faded.

Icheb flashes a grin over his shoulder at Seven, who’s trailing behind them, watching as the bustle of the flight deck goes by. He adjusts the bag that Seven gave him earlier, fiddling with the strap over his shoulder. It pulls at the red material of his Starfleet uniform as he tries to get it to sit just right.

“Daimanta,” he answers, “a planet full of deep blue seas and golden beaches, if my sources are correct...”

Seven scoffs from behind them, “If your sources suggested you’re going on a Risan holiday, then they’re horribly mistaken.”

Rozyani reaches out for Seven’s hand and steals the _raktajino_ back from her. Then she makes a face when she realises that it’s empty, and tries to make Seven take the cup back. Seven refuses to let Rozyani do that to her, and dances away, chuckling. Yani huffs and stuffs the object into one of her pockets. She looks like she’s suddenly been inflicted with Elephantiasis.

“Annika, let the poor man have his Risan dream!” Rozyani teases, slinging her arm around Icheb’s shoulders in solidarity. Then she continues, asking, “…and how long will you be going for? A couple of days?”

Icheb nods, “That sounds about right. The Dispatch schedule estimated two, maybe three days there and back. With any luck I can get finished early and be back by tomorrow evening. It shouldn’t be too difficult. Just some standard recon to check on how things are going, planet-side. The rangers keeping up appearances in the area, -” he gestures enthusiastically with his hands as he’s talking, “-let the bad guys know what’s what.”

Rozyani stops at the side of an unassuming starship and pats its flank like it’s her pet. The metal makes a hollow _thwonk_ of a sound that’s oddly loud in the din of the cavernous space where they’re standing.

“Your ship, Sir,” Yani declares with a flourish.

Seven watches Icheb taking a critical look at the ship’s exterior with a little pang of _something_ in her heart. It’s probably a mixture of pride and trepidation, driven by love. She clenches and releases the fingers of one hand into a fist against her thigh. Rozyani catches her doing it, and recognises the movement as an outward tell of Seven’s anxiety. The mechanic steps over and puts her hand on Seven’s arm.

“Don’t worry about him, Annika,” she reassures quietly, as Icheb’s analysis of the ship’s exterior takes him aft, and out of earshot, “I checked over all of the ship’s specifics for myself. It’s sturdy, it’s reliable and it’s safe.”

Then she smiles up at Seven, and gives her a little, one-armed hug.

“Trust me on it,” Yani says.

“It’s not the ship I’m worried about,” Seven confides, the musings that kept her awake half the night rushing back in at her with a feeling of dread, “It’s what he might run into out there.”

Outlining the facets of her Ex-Borg kidnapping conspiracy theory to Rozyani goes most of the way to convincing Seven that her suspicions are correct.

Jay, who although understanding, was not entirely convinced that a direct relationship existed between the different elements of her story and Freecloud. As a consolation, or perhaps out of some partner-ly sense of duty, Bjayzl offered to help Seven follow up the leads on Freecloud, later that night.

In contrast to Bjayzl’s reluctance to accept Seven’s theory, Rozyani becomes apprehensive.

“I’m not so sure I’m comfortable with Icheb going out there by himself after all,” she says, looking up at Seven with a worried sigh.

Icheb emerges from behind the opposite side of the ship with an expression of excitement on his broad face.

“Tell me about it,” Seven replies.

“Is there a problem?” Icheb asks, when he sees the twinned expressions of trepidation on the faces of the women before him.

Seven folds her arms over her chest with a smile that belies her anxiety.

“Just, letting Yani in on the whole Ex-Borg kidnapping theory,” she explains, “Nothing too heavy.”

Yani smirks, in her customary manner, adding - “True, we’re just standing here…quietly losing our minds.”

“Oh, right,” Icheb nods, “Yeah it is concerning, isn’t it?”

He looks directly at Seven, with his eyes full of confidence and trust, “But I’m sure we’ll get to the bottom of it soon. You’re looking into the Freecloud transmissions with Bjayzl, aren’t you? Hopefully I can help you out with them when I get back,” he says.

“Affirmative. We’re heading over to Freecloud tonight,” Seven responds, thinking of the rushed calls that Bjayzl was making to the Rangers’ headquarters for permission to visit the station instead of attending to their duties for one night. Realising the timings of their outings, Seven adds, “If you get home early from your mission, I won’t be able to see you until later. So…be safe.”

Yani takes one of Icheb’s large hands in both of hers and squeezes it fondly.

“What your mama said,” the mechanic reiterates, using the usually embarrassing reference to Seven as his mother. Seven realises that she doesn’t mind it so much, this time. Rozyani pulls Icheb closer and throws her arms around him, “Be safe, Icheb,” she says.

Icheb seems a little overwhelmed by the general show of affection and tentatively pats the mechanic’s narrow back.

“Thanks, Yani, I will,” Icheb says.

Then he turns to Seven and addresses her, “You be careful too, okay? I’m not the only Ex-Borg person running around out here.”

He smiles, slightly.

Seven snorts, picking up on her surrogate son’s attempt to lighten the mood.

“I’m extremely tough.” She argues, “Nobody’s going to get to me that easily.”

Icheb reaches out and grips her shoulder. He squeezes it gently, “Nevertheless.”

Seven nods, “Sentiment?”

“Something like that,” Icheb echoes.

He hesitates for a moment and then steps forwards and wraps his arms around her, hugging tightly. Seven releases a short, surprised huff of laughter and tightens her arms in return, feeling the short-cropped hair at the nape of his neck prickling her ear. She closes her eyes briefly and revels in the moment, allowing herself this second of public affection that is generally not in her character.

All too soon, the young man releases her and steps away, heading for the cabin of his spacecraft.

“I’ll see you later, then,” he says, and then waves goodbye to Yani.

Seven puts her hands in her pockets and begins to follow Yani in the opposite direction, to an area where they can safely watch Icheb’s ship take off. An object in her pocket touches her fingers and she suddenly remembers the gift for Icheb that Bjayzl gave her that morning, as she was leaving.

“Icheb, wait!” Seven calls, causing Icheb to stop and look back over his shoulder. She jogs back over and presses the object into his hand.

“I nearly forgot this. Bjayzl wanted to give it to you in person, – she’s sorry she couldn’t make it here to see you,” Seven says.

Icheb holds the token between his thumb and forefinger. A clear, octagonal chip with a circular symbol in the middle, “A beacon for the Fenris Rangers?”

Seven shrugs, smiling, “Yeah, I guess she wanted you to have it…seeing as you’re one of us now. Even if it’s just as a volunteer.”

She nods once, moving back towards the safe take-off viewing place.

“We’re proud of you. Icheb,” Seven says.

Icheb blushes and shoves the beacon into his uniform pocket, accepting the compliment with good humour. Then he turns and climbs into his spacecraft with a wave, disappearing from sight as he closes the door.

Seven and Yani watch him take off together, manoeuvring his craft along the flight deck towards the airlock, and out into the night.


	12. Seven goes for a walk in the dark. Bruce gives Seven some chips. Bjayzl feels hungry.

## \--- Midas Well ---

“I absolutely adore Freecloud.”-

Seven watches Bjayzl’s demeanour sparkling as she takes in the ostentatious lights of Stardust City. They’ve beamed down into the Midas Well district of the metropolis. It’s an area that’s been optimistically named in line with the enterprising, liberal spirit of the pseudo-republic. Time, and the inevitable influence of unbridled greed and commercialism have captured that spirit, bundled it into a body bag, and heaved it out with the rubbish.

Now the district does seedy and run-down chic with a desperate, last-ditch stab at glamour and prosperity. There are little hole-in-the-wall gambling dens and sex shops and other questionable trading houses everywhere. They’re all pushed in amongst the high-rise apartments, hotels and office buildings. Holographic advertisements cling like barnacles to any available surface.

Another credit is offered to the altar.

Life drags on.

\- Seven, in contrast, is not a fan.

“I’ve never understood this place,” Seven says.

Bjayzl shrugs, an excited little wriggle, and takes her partner’s hand.

“It grows on you,” she says, and tugs on Seven’s fingers, prompting her to follow.

Seven looks dubious, but allows herself to be pulled along anyway. Bjayzl has been unusually solicitous in order to help her get to the bottom of the mystery surrounding the Freecloud transmissions. And in a way, Bjayzl’s decisiveness on the matter has been a relief, with Seven having been at a loose end regarding the steps she needed to take next.

Bjayzl has spent the whole day liaising with her contacts on Freecloud and making comm calls. Seven has no real inkling of where they’re currently going, or who they’ll be meeting, but the activity gives her hope, and she’s curious to discover what Bjayzl has planned.

Bjayzl crosses the street and steps up onto the opposite kerb, and then Seven hops up beside her. Seven narrowly avoids rolling her ankle when she misjudges the uneven concrete beneath her feet. Bjayzl catches Seven’s arm and holds her steady until she has her balance again.

“Careful, Annika,” Jay says.

Jay’s dark eyes are soft when she smiles at Seven, “Watch your step.”

“Thanks,” Seven says, when Bjayzl lets go of her arm and gives her shoulder a pat to acknowledge that she’s okay.

Bjayzl takes her hand again and leads them into the entrance of a food vendor’s shop, to Seven’s confusion, but doesn’t stop there. They squeeze through the narrow space between a yellowing, oil-stained wall and a line of customers seated on tired-looking chairs in front of the service counter. A hidden speaker somewhere in the room plays a doleful love song to its indifferent audience as the two women shuffle past. Nobody so much as looks at them.

Seven looks around as Bjayzl ushers her through another doorway at the base of a darkened, concrete staircase, and out into a dimly-lit courtyard. There’s a child’s tricycle lying on its side and a family’s worth of shoes left in a row outside the door. A string of rainbow fairy lights around the doorway does less to illuminate the darkness, than it does to stain the shadows with shades of purple, blue, and red.

“Where are we going?” Seven asks, as they step out onto more crumbling old concrete and brickwork.

She watches where she puts her feet this time, careful not to trip on what once would have been a herringbone border around the courtyard’s single tree.

Bjayzl walks on ahead of her, towards an archway between two of the tall buildings that make up the courtyard. It’s so dark beyond the archway, that the invisible spaces beyond it are pretty much shrouded in black.

“To see a friend of mine,” Bjayzl says casually, calling back to Seven over her shoulder, “You’ve met him before.”

She steps into the archway’s darkness, beckoning the other woman to follow her, “It’s just through here. Come on.”

Seven follows her through, wondering if this strange adventure is going to end with them both being horribly murdered in the dark, and then scoffs at her own imagination. The alleyway opens up into a wider, one-lane street, with more tall buildings on either side. These ones are the back doors of people’s apartments, their walls facing away from the traffic of the main streets. The holograms and neon advertising signs are fewer here, and the street quieter with the muffled hum of people conducting their lives after dark, indoors.

Bjayzl stops outside a battered old entryway that looks like it used to be a garage. There’s white light peeking out from around the edges of the closed roller door, and the sound of the cooling fan on some sort of machine whirring in the background. Seven stands and waits next to a grav-bike that’s parked against the closest wall, while Bjayzl knocks on the roller door that’s blocking their entrance.

“Botu?” Jay calls, and Seven hears the sound of a chair creaking as the person behind the door gets up.

“Open up. It’s me, Bjayzl,” adding, “and Annika Hansen,” after a beat.

It takes Seven a moment to recognise the heavy-set man who answers the door as Bruce, the Ranger in charge of the salvage team that collected her corsair from Glidden’s Landing. He looks…wearier in real life. With lines of worry around his bloodshot eyes, and a sag to his shoulders that suggests he doesn’t sleep.

Bruce ushers them indoors and closes the roller door behind them. The place didn’t just _used to be_ a garage, it still mostly _is_ one. The majority of the room is occupied by a large, rectangular work table, and there’s another, narrower one along one wall. A bank of computers huddles under the narrow bench, the whir of their cooling fans being the source of the machine noise that Seven heard outside. On top of the bench are a pair of computer screens, both of them with an older-model holographic interface. Every other spare surface, including the vertical ones, is covered with a variety of spare parts and tools and other technological paraphernalia.

A thin spiral staircase in the back corner of the room must lead up to Bruce’s living area. It is the only real clue that somebody actually lives there, above the crowded workshop. Seven notices a crumpled piece of artwork taped to the bannister of the staircase. It displays a child’s sloppy painting, of a blob with some other blobs and a brave attempt at lettering across the top of the page. They approximate the phrase, ‘ _To Dad’_ , and the translation below it confirms this hypothesis, written in an adult’s hand.

Bruce notices her looking at it, and gestures with a nod in its direction.

“My little girl,” he says, in a voice that is tight with an emotion, unidentified.

Seven doesn’t get a chance to hear him say anything else about the matter, because Bjayzl interrupts him from the other side of the workshop’s central table.

“Bruce, we’re here to talk about those transmissions.” Bjayzl says plainly. The phrase ‘ _and not about your family’_ is very clearly implied.

Seven frowns a little at her partner. She appreciates the importance of their investigation, and is also eager to get a move on. However, she is concerned that Bjayzl is being unnecessarily harsh…even rude. Bruce has done nothing wrong.

The tired old man rubs a finger under his nose with a contrite “Sorry,” and takes a seat on the workshop’s only chair.

It makes the same creak that Seven heard earlier as he was getting up to answer the door. Bruce spins the chair to face the computer screens behind him and gestures with his fingers to activate the displays.

Seven takes her eyes off her partner and instead pays attention to the computer screen, currently displaying a wall of text logging comm traffic travelling to and from the planet’s primary relay station.

“What are we looking at?” Seven says.

“Freecloud Communications Data and Receiver Accounts log,” Bruce says, folding his arms across his comfortable girth. The chair creaks as he leans back, and the workshop air has a faint undertone to it, stinking of nervous sweat. Seven tries not to wrinkle her nose.

“And what does the data tell you?” Bjayzl says, sounding irritated over being forced to work so hard to keep the old man talking.

Seven notices the way the other woman is holding her hands: clasped tightly together in front of her, massaging the knuckles of one hand with her thumb. She wonders what Bjayzl is worrying about, other than the answer to her own question.

Bruce breaks eye contact with both Seven and Bjayzl as he begins speaking, his gaze drifting restlessly towards the spiral staircase and its crumpled painting. He recites the following information by rote, never once looking back at the computer screens.

“I checked the logs for transmissions coming in from Nas-Hujjar and Glidden’s Landing – for the past six months. The transmissions don’t seem to be linked to any single receiver’s account at the relay station. They’re shadows. Unidentifiable end points, the lot of ‘em,” he says.

Bruce doesn’t sound convincing, but Seven’s heart falls anyway, “So we still don’t know who’s responsible?” she says.

Bruce’s gaze flickers towards Bjayzl’s for a millisecond before falling to the floor near his feet. He bows his balding head and hunches forward, an attitude of defeat.

“No. Sorry…” he hesitates, and suddenly locks eyes with Bjayzl, as if magnetised, “I’m afraid not.”

Bjayzl’s hands drop to her sides and she releases a short, regretful exhale.

“That’s disappointing news, Botu,” she says, addressing the man by his surname.

“I’m sorry we’ve wasted your time.”

Her comm unit makes a vibrating alert sound from inside her pocket, and she pulls the device out with one hand, checking the display with a flick of her fingers.

Bjayzl looks up at both of them, eyes bright.

“Excuse me, I really have to take this,” she says, indicating the incoming comm call, “Bruce, why don’t you download your research onto a data chip for Annika? She might be able to find something you missed. Alright? Make sure you give her everything she needs.”

She heads for the door of the workshop, already distracted by the data coming through to her comm.

“I won’t be a moment, darlings. I’m just going to quickly take this call outside.” Bjayzl lifts the comm unit to her ear, already turning, “Yes? You have the merchandise? Oh, that’s won-”

And then she’s out the door.

There’s a palpable tension in Bruce’s expression as he watches Bjayzl exit the room. Seven is surprised when his gaze suddenly fixes on her with an intense and terrified desperation.

“Ms. Hansen, I don’t think we have much time,” he says, urgently, fumbling in one of the drawers of the workbench as soon as Bjayzl has gone. The other woman’s voice is audible outside the workshop door, but it’s impossible to understand her conversation.

“What are you talking about?” Seven says, craning her neck to see what it is that Bruce is searching for.

The old man finally pulls out a data chip and presses it into her hand, curling her fingers over it and squeezing once, tight.

“That woman you’re seeing,” he says, “Bjayzl. She’s dangerous.”

“ _What_?” says Seven.

Bruce tugs at her hand, for emphasis.

“I know it’s difficult. But please, you must believe me. She’s in on something – trading in Ex-Borg. I don’t understand the specifics, but it’s all in the data logs,” he says.

Seven takes her hand back, slips the data chip into her pocket without thinking. Her voice is quiet-harsh and disbelieving. It isn’t true. I _mustn’t_ be.

“Bruce, no. That’s insane. Jay would never-” Seven protests.

“She took my daughter,” Bruce says in a broken murmur, “When I say took…she’s as good as dead now. Gone. Sheila was all that I had left, after her mum…”

His weary eyes look up at Seven, with a blank horror lurking inside them.

“She’s a powerful woman, your partner. I have no hope of ever stopping her. But…she’s close to you. You might have a better chance than anyone else.”

Seven resists the urge to shake the man and demand to know exactly _what the fuck_ he’s talking about. Luckily, or perhaps unluckily, Bjayzl chooses that moment to wander back in, tucking her communicator back into her pocket, and with a satisfied little smile gracing her lips.

She walks up to Seven and places a gentle hand at the small of her lover’s back.

“Annika, love, we need to go,” she says smilingly. And then to Bruce, she asks, “Have you given Annika everything?”

Bruce quickly turns back to his computer and shoves a new data chip into the screen, pulling it out again when the display flashes up a confirmation of a successful download. The big man stands and hands the data chip over, with a last, brief eye contact that wordlessly pleads for Seven to believe him.

Seven takes the second chip in her hand with a word of thanks, and lets herself be guided out of the workshop with Bjayzl at her back.

She slides the data chip into her pocket, alongside the first one, feeling numb.

Bjayzl smooths her hand around Seven’s waist as they walk, pulling her close enough that their thighs keep touching. Her lover’s voice is warm and sweet beside her ear. It wars against the shock and confusion that Seven feels in response to Bruce’s warning.

The words aren’t even sinister. _Why would they be_? Seven trusts Bjayzl. She loves her. Bruce must have been making a mistake. The excuse sounds thin even as Seven thinks it. She takes a breath to calm herself and leans in to the casual embrace.

“Are you hungry?” Bjayzl says.


	13. Seven has a jacket on. Rozyani fixes an engine. Bjayzl inspires extensive cursing. Seven thinks of something else to do.

## \--- Fenris Orbital Station ---

Icheb doesn’t return from Daimanta on the day after his departure.

…Nor does he return on the day after that.

When Seven calls his housemate in Dovetail City, Eden says he hasn’t heard from him.

Seven contacts Central Dispatch. They haven’t heard anything from Icheb either. His transponder ping shows that his ship is parked at Daimanta. Dispatch suggests that he might still be working.

The first, smuggled data chip from Bruce in Midas Well burns a hole in Seven’s jacket pocket. Her fingers worry at the edges of it through the leather and cloth lining of her jacket, again and again. She hasn’t looked at its contents yet. There’s a large part of her that doesn’t want to. She knows that the most efficient route would simply be to ask her lover for the truth. But that feels in some way like a betrayal of trust, accusing the other woman of being complicit in the very mystery that they’re trying to solve.

At any rate, Bjayzl hasn’t even been present on the station since they got back from Freecloud. The call that she’d received was apparently some sort of urgent business, and she’d left again almost immediately, in order to attend to it. In the absence of her partner, Seven turns to the only other person whom she feels that she can trust.

She goes down to mechanical engineering to see if Rozyani has finished working for the day.

## \--- Flight Deck ---

The flight crew are working late, repairing the engine on a beaten-up cruiser when Seven walks into the docking bay. Rozyani is balancing on the very top platform of a metal step ladder. She’s bent forwards at the waist, with the interior of the engine swallowing most of her torso. Seven can hear the mechanic swearing at the circuitry from inside the engine as Yani struggles to pull something free. Her small hand reaches out behind her and wriggles expectantly, before one of the flight crew hands her a tool from a crate at the base of the step ladder.

Rozyani gives a shout of triumph and one last curse at the engine, as she extracts herself from its innards and climbs down from her perch. Seven waits unobtrusively as Yani’s crew congratulate her, and then they take away the part and start working on its replacement. The flight crew step out of their boss’s way when Yani spots Seven standing awkwardly against the far wall. The mechanic wipes her hands on a clean rag, and hands it to one of her colleagues with a nod, instructing her crewman that he should take over.

Yani looks up at her friend curiously, noticing the way that Seven’s fingers worry at an object in her pocket.

“Hey Annika. I wasn’t expecting to see you here,” she says, giving Seven’s boot a friendly tap with the toe cap of her own. Her hands are still a bit greasy and she doesn’t want to stain Seven’s clothes.

“Can I help you?” Yani says.

Seven touches the mechanic’s elbow, pressing against the rough material of Yani’s jumpsuit. She leans in close to her.

“There’s something I need to talk about,” she says, “but I’d rather not do it here. Is there…somewhere private?”

If Rozyani is concerned, she doesn’t show it, apart from a slight furrowing of her eyebrows. She points up at an office space with long glass windows that looks out over the mechanical engineering bay. A metal ladder with iron-grey rungs leads up to it. There’s a small landing in front of the office door.

“My office is closest,” Rozyani says, “will that do?”

Seven looks up at it, in the direction that Yani is pointing.

“Yes,” she says, “Do you have a minute now?”

Yani nods, reading Seven’s anxious expression.

“Of course, let’s go. Follow me.” she says.

Yani turns and shouts to her flight crew that she’ll be back in a few minutes, and that they had better be careful not to break anything. Her instruction is met with amused replies of “Yes boss,” and, “You got it. No problem.”

Seven follows the mechanic as she climbs up the ladder, the metal sounding clunky and hollow beneath her boots. Rozyani opens the office door and they go inside. Seven takes a seat on one of the swivel chairs as Yani instructs the computer to tint the windows for privacy.

Rozyani takes another chair and sits down with her hands held in front of her. After the computer has finished darkening the windows, she rolls her chair in front of Seven’s and takes one of her hands, rubbing her thumb across the back of her friend’s fingers.

“What’s wrong Annika? What happened?” Rozyani asks.

Seven reaches into her jacket and pulls out Bruce’s data chip. Its clear plastic surface gleams in the grip of her free hand.

“You know how me and Jay went to meet her contact down at Midas Well?” Seven asks.

“Yeah?” Yani answers.

Seven turns the chip between her fingers, her gaze is fixed somewhere beyond it, like it isn’t there.

“He – Bruce, he gave me this data chip…and also a warning…” says Seven.

She shifts her palm inside the cradle of Yani’s hand and grips it. She feels her short fingernails pressing into Yani’s calloused skin. Bracing against the harshness of the truth.

“It was about Jay.”

Yani looks just as confused as Seven did. She shuffles forward in her seat.

“What do you mean, Annika? Why Jay? What was the warning about?” Yani says.

Yani touches her forefinger to the chip in Seven’s other hand, “Is it something on that data chip?”

Seven sighs and hands the data chip to her, watching as the mechanic holds it to the light, as though that might make the answers appear.

“I don’t know yet…” Seven admits, “Bruce said Jay was involved in something to do with Ex-Borg trade. He implied that she might be linked to my investigation – with the missing people. He didn’t say exactly what, though. Just that the information was all on that chip.”

She pauses, and then continues tentatively, “I, uh…I haven’t been able to make myself look at it yet.”

Yani looks at her, “You need my help.”

Seven nods, “I can’t face it alone.”

Yani lets go of Seven’s fingers and rolls her chair across the floor to her computer. She inserts the data chip into the device. Her voice is compassionate.

“So, we’ll look at it together then,” Yani says.

Seven finds it difficult to watch the screen as Yani pulls up the information from the data chip. Instead, she watches the mechanic’s fingertips fly across her computer’s keyboard, at the creases of Yani’s knuckles, which still harbour streaks of tacky black machine oil. The screen casts a blue-green glow over the laminate desktop as the information scrolls through. She listens to the soft sound of Yani’s breathing and pushes back at her sense of dread.

There’s a sudden silence when Yani stops typing. A brief, troubled inhale.

“Seven…” Yani says.

Seven looks up. Rozyani almost never uses her real name. A cold shiver runs down her spine. Seven closes her eyes, waiting for Yani to speak.

The mechanic’s warm hand brushes over Seven’s knee, prompting Seven to look at her. Her eyes are troubled, which itself might be worse for Seven, than just looking at the data for herself.

“You said you found echo devices on Nas-Hujjar and Glidden’s Landing that were transmitting to an account on Freecloud, right?”

Yani waits for Seven’s affirmation, “The owner of that account is...”

Seven finally forces herself to look at the screen. It’s all there. An awful revelation in the lines of code.

She hates it, but she has to say it anyway, “...Jay.”

Yani is at a loss for words, knowing that a simple note of apology isn’t going to fix anything. The way she holds her body expresses the sentiment, regardless.

‘ _I’m sorry_.’

Seven reaches forwards and scrolls through the text on screen, reading the information as it appears.

“Freecloud is only a halfway-point between the message’s origins and Vergessen,” Seven says, “It’s like the transmissions are being relayed to Freecloud as a cover, and are being shepherded onward.”

Yani squeezes Seven’s shoulder, conveying any number of things in that gesture of support. Seven touches the back of her friend’s hand, briefly, and keeps reading.

“There’s other data in here too,” Seven notices, opening a new folder, “financial information…oh, fuck no…”

Yani leans over to look at the screen, “What is it?”

“Payments to _Rill’s Luxury Cruiselines_. Icheb and I talked to the owner about damages that his customers were trying to claim, after people were taken off one of their cruises. We did some hacking into the company’s accounts and saw that they were receiving payouts whenever they took on customers who were Ex-Borg.”

There’s a moment of troubled quiet as the implications sink in, “Jay knew about all of this,” Seven says.

“Prophets,” Rozyani blasphemes, her voice growing hard.

“She fucking fooled all of us. Why the fuck would she do this?”

Seven shakes her head, frowning, “I really don’t know. It just seems impossible. I thought…”

She scans the screen, still scrolling, “I thought I knew her.”

Again, Seven stops. Yani swears loudly behind her.

There are three entries at the bottom of the screen. Three transponder signals, transmitting information from Freecloud to Vergessen.

Their source: Daimanta.

 _Icheb is in danger_.

Seven stands up abruptly, as Yani flicks off her computer.

“I have to get to him,” Seven says.

She looks confused when Yani moves to follow her.

“What are you doing?”

Yani pushes her friend towards the office door, typically fond of Seven, despite her impatience.

“Isn’t it obvious, you idiot? I’m coming with you.”


	14. Icheb goes AWOL. Rozyani makes a hand sign. Seven crashes a party.

## \--- Daimanta ---

The howling wind is harsh on Daimanta, when Seven and Yani land their spacecraft near Icheb’s last known location. They step out onto a wide beach of boulders and gravel in shades of rust and cinnabar. Twisted and half-dead saltbush cling to patches of black soil wherever those spaces exist. They form a tangled scrub amongst the taller rocks beyond their ship. Fat-leaved creepers hug the flatter ground, spreading out with straw-coloured trailers and shrinking away from the wind.

Icheb’s spacecraft is parked approximately eight hundred meters, or nearly half a mile away. The nose of the familiar craft is pointed obliquely towards the shore. It’s clear, even from this distance, that the cockpit door is open.

The two women start jogging towards it. The stones of the beach make harsh, musical noises beneath their feet. The combined roar of the wind and the waves on their left almost drown Seven’s voice as she calls out for Icheb as they draw closer. The silty green water drenches the nose of the craft as the tide approaches, hissing viciously.

Seven slows as she reaches the door to the spacecraft, wishing hopelessly for Icheb to stick his head out, and come smiling to greet her. There’s no such luck. She pokes her head into the open door, and finds the spacecraft empty. The waves are starting to feel their way inside, jumping up over the lip of the floor and spreading out to make their claim. Soon, the ship will either be half-underwater, or stolen deeper by the greedy sea.

Someone has emptied a phaser rifle at the pilot’s control panel, rendering the small craft effectively dead. The burnt-out wiring must have stopped smouldering days or hours ago. A crusty saltwater tidemark at about calf-height suggests that the craft has been in and out of the rising water at least once before.

Yani side-steps around Seven and picks up Icheb’s supplies bag from the corner, where it was sitting in a salt-damp heap. The incoming tide hasn’t reached that far indoors yet. She runs her palm over the rough-woven fabric with a little frown and shares a look with Seven. The air is heavy with the same conclusion, though neither woman wants to voice it.

Someone else got to him first.

*

There’s a loud noise outside the cabin, the sound and fury of a spacecraft landing. Seven turns her head towards it, calculating the chances that the new arrivals might be friends.

_Not likely_.

Rozyani tilts her chin at her, putting the strap of Icheb’s bag over her shoulders and hunkering down at the edge of the open door. Seven reads her reaction and acknowledges that it’s a sound decision: taking cover. She raises one eyebrow in resignation, and crouches down in the shelter of the doorway opposite her friend.

The newcomers land their ship on the gravel between their own and Icheb’s spacecraft. The new ship sits back from the shore, so the tide will not reach it, and is located about six hundred meters distant from Icheb’s craft. Rozyani has a line of sight to the landing party from her hiding place, and holds up one hand to Seven, her fingers splayed. She’s counted four of them. Then she makes another gesture, her thumb and forefinger at right angles, extended. They’re armed.

Seven bites her lip and chances a peek outside the door. Neither she nor Rozyani brought weapons, which might have been an oversight, but it’s not in Seven’s nature to shoot first and ask questions later. She’ll think of a way to get them both out of here, even if the solution requires flying by the seat of her pants.

The newcomers turn north, up the beach. The howl of the wind is behind them. They start heading away from Icheb’s ship, toward Seven and Yani’s spacecraft, deciding to investigate the other vessel first. One of the four men trails behind the group, stumbling on the stones as the others move further ahead. His companions don’t pause, or even look back as the other man climbs to his feet, using the tip of his phaser rifle like a crutch as he stands. So, they’re not professionals then, Seven ponders. Undisciplined, or indifferent. The trailing man starts off after his companions, kicking at rocks as though they’ve offended him.

Seven sees the opportunity that his fall has provided.

She turns back to Rozyani, “We can grab that last guy and use his weapon,” she says, “and we can use their ship as cover while we get there.”

Yani listens to what Seven is saying, and nods sharply. She tightens the strap of Icheb’s bag around her shoulder, her fingers snugging the strap down against her clothing. _Agreed_.

Seven steps down from the doorway into the ankle-deep water. Beside her, Rozyani does the same. The din of the wind and the waves masks their splashes as they run up the beach and between the taller boulders towards the newcomer’s spacecraft.

The newcomers have already reached the other ship now. Two of the strangers start clambering over the rocks and trees beyond where Seven and Rozyani’s ship is parked, using their phaser rifles to forge a path through the tangled scrub. A third one starts walking around their ship’s perimeter, climbing up onto the wing of the craft to get a glimpse through the windshield and see if there’s anyone in.

The fourth man still lags behind, apparently distracted by an interesting stone. Seven tilts her head at him, and sees Rozyani’s returning nod. Together, both women hurry as quietly as possible towards the straggler. Rozyani lifts the strap of Icheb’s heavy bag from around her shoulders as the man begins standing, and swings the bag at his neck like a flail.

The shock of the attack makes the man drop his rifle and stumble back into Rozyani’s grasp. The mechanic stifles his shout of surprise with her forearm, the bend of her elbow wrapped tight against his mouth. Seven knows from experience just how firm the mechanic’s grip can be. They struggle, and Seven grabs his rifle from the pebbles and strikes him in the crotch, hard, then drives her boot into his knees, folding him over.

Seven thumbs the setting switch near the rifle’s safety and is surprised to discover that it’s already set to stun. She aims the barrel and fires it at the man, her pulse thundering like a rabbit’s, as he ragdolls to the ground.

Rozyani extracts Icheb’s bag from underneath the man’s unconscious weight, and wraps the strap around her wrist. Her eyes are wild, but determined. She shares a tense glance with Seven, and looks up the beach towards their spaceship, at the stranger walking around it’s short perimeter. Silently, Seven agrees with her. _We’ll get that guy next_.

Unfortunately for the women, the remaining distance between themselves and their spaceship has very little in terms of cover. Even if they found a place to hide, the man walking their ship’s perimeter will notice his downed comrade, and then she and Rozyani will be in even more danger.

Seven aims the stolen rifle at the perimeter of the ship, where she expects the third man to emerge from his wandering. When he finally emerges, Seven pulls the trigger and hits the ship next to his arm, missing.

“ _Shit_ ,” says Seven as the man raises his own rifle and fires three shots at their position. The commotion draws the attention of his remaining colleagues, and the other two men come racing between the boulders with their weapons raised.

Seven adjusts her grip on her rifle and fires again, this time stunning the third man successfully. The other two men start firing wildly in their direction. Most of the phaser blasts fall wide, kicking up the gravel behind them.

Seven pushes Yani ahead of her, coaxing her friend into a run.

“Get to our ship and open the door,” Seven says, “I’ll cover you.”

Rozyani keeps her head down and runs for their spacecraft as Seven instructed. Seven follows suit, firing her rifle at their pursuers and hoping to either land a hit or to distract.

Seven fells another one of the men as Yani reaches the ship’s door. The mechanic is swearing and breathing heavily, typing in the door code. Two shots from the remaining man’s phaser rifle slice through the air where Rozyani was standing, just as the mechanic gets the door open and tumbles inside.

Seven fires back at him, her shots disturbing the gravel at his feet. Rozyani grabs the back of Seven’s jacket and hauls her friend inside.

“Annika! Come on, get us flying!” she says.

Adrenaline surges through Seven’s veins as she jumps into the pilot’s seat and Rozyani begins the sequence for closing and sealing the cabin door. Seven looks back over her shoulder as they lift off. There’s a chime from the door and Rozyani sits down, giving her friend the thumbs up.

“Let’s move,” Yani says.

Seven turns back to the controls. She turns their ship’s nose towards space.

In the tense silence behind her, Rozyani asks, “Are they following us?”

Seven switches the displays, “Not yet.”

The ship on the ground reads as a quickly rising heat signature, but there’s no decrease in proximity to show that they’ve taken off yet. Seven switches the display screen to forward tactical again, calculating how much time they have ‘til they break atmosphere.

The landing party’s ship is bigger and more powerful than Seven’s, and she and Yani will be outpowered and outgunned if the others get an opportunity to catch up with them in space. To Seven’s advantage, however, the other ship is a carrier, and is therefore more cumbersome in atmosphere. There’s a small window of opportunity now, if Seven can out-fly the other pilot and break away.

An urgent alert tone sounds from the pilot’s control panel, and Seven flicks the display over to the secondary screen. She glances behind her.

“They’re coming at us, Yani. Belts on,” Seven says.

Both women lean back into their seats as the harnesses roll down their shoulders, securing firmly around each of their waists. The pursuing ship starts firing. Bright bursts of energy streak past their hull.

“Ready for G’s Yani?” Seven asks, “we’re going to dive.”

From the seat behind Seven, Yani says, “Ready.”

Seven accelerates and then deliberately turns their nose down, diving back towards the oceans of Daimanta again. The carrier behind them seems to hang in the air as it swerves in a hairpin bend to match their trajectory, diving behind them hard and fast.

Seven hosts a brief, belligerent smile as they all race for the planet’s surface. The enemy pilot has fallen for it, and the flat blue-green spread of Daimanta’s ocean is coming up fast.

Breathing harshly, Yani says, “Uh...Annika…?” as the blue fills out the viewscreen.

“Pulling up,” Seven says, hauling their nose level at the very last minute. Seconds later, the secondary display registers the other ship’s crash. Their windshield gets spattered with the spray of its impact.

Yani gives a shout of triumph that is flooded with relief. 

“We got them!” she says.

Seven’s grin becomes less hostile as she looks over her shoulder to her friend, “Yeah, we did.”

Then her expression sobers, and grows serious, “There’s no way that ship had nothing to do with Vergessen…”

“You think they took Icheb there?” Rozyani says.

Seven returns their trajectory towards outer space, “I do, yes.”

She glances back at Yani, in silent question.

Rozyani’s eyes are full of fire as she looks back at Seven, her jaw is set, “Let’s go then,” she says.


	15. Seven solves a mystery. Rozyani swears a lot. Bjayzl taps out.

* * *

**CONTENT WARNING**

**This chapter has specific content warnings.**

**Canon typical violence. Including:**

Gun violence. Physical violence (fighting). Descriptions of an abattoir-like setting. Horror/Suspenseful themes. Non-graphic descriptions of torture overheard but not witnessed. Explicit language. Descriptions of strong emotions: fear, loss, betrayal. Character death.

* * *

## \--- Vergessen ---

Vergessen is a bright black and silver marble from orbit. The glare of reflected sunlight from the daylit side of the planet makes Seven’s eyes hurt, and she’s grudgingly thankful for the nap that Rozyani made her take on the way here.

She’d fought the mechanic on it, of course, out of a stubborn desire to get to Icheb faster. But her friend had made a very good argument against that when Seven’s fatigued piloting nearly flew them into an asteroid.

_(“Having a radar and being alert enough to make use of it are two very different things,”_ Yani had said, taking over the pilot’s controls, _“Stop fighting me on this and take a fucking nap, Annika.”_ ) she said.

Neither Seven nor Yani have a clear idea of where on the planet their attackers might be holding Icheb, or the other Ex-Borg that they’ve abducted. The marshlands seem like the best location for a facility, though Yani has to remind Seven that landing their ship in that area would be unwise, because of the hydrogen sulphide in the atmosphere.

“We’d probably explode,” Yani says.

Seven frowns at her readings, adjusts a parameter and then curses at how tired she still is, “You are correct,” she says.

Their ship’s scanner picks up a structure in the distance, and Seven magnifies it.

“There’s a building complex down there,” she tells Yani, “with…” Seven pauses and checks the ship’s readings again, “...an adaptive shield matrix.”

Yani sounds surprised, “Borg shielding?”

“Yes,” says Seven, “there’s no mistaking it. If this is the place we’re looking for, then we are not going to be beaming in.”

Yani cranes her neck to look out through the windshield, even though the scanner’s feed can provide them with a magnified image. It’s a natural reaction for any being, to want to analyse their environment by peering outside first.

“Is it safe enough for us to beam down nearby?” the mechanic asks.

Seven instructs the ship to run a scan. After a moment, an orange-bordered square flashes up, with the ship’s readings summarised alongside it.

“There’s a spot here,” Seven says, magnifying the point identified on the viewscreen, “We can get a beam in about one-point-six kilometres away. We’ll need to take an injection to cope with the atmospheric toxicity. And the area’s mostly wetland, so it might get a little wet,” Seven says.

Rozyani grimaces ruefully from the back seat, “Wow, sounds like a walk in the park. I’m kind of sorry that I didn’t think to bring my swimsuit. You get us into a stable orbit, and I’ll prepare the hyposprays,” she says.

“Which park could you have possibly been to with conditions like that?” Seven says, scoffing.

The mechanic rolls her eyes, “You know what I mean.”

Seven feels Yani’s fingers flick at the back of her head and she grins, despite everything.

Yani gets out of her harness and walks the two steps to the ship’s replicator to prepare their injections, her own smile is audible as she calls back over her shoulder, “Now get working on our beam-down,” she says.

Seven tilts her chin in acknowledgement, turning back to face her controls, “Yes ma’am.”

## \--- Seven Domes Facility ---

The trek to the facility is a long and uncomfortable one. Seven climbs gratefully up onto the raised, grey stone of the landscape’s only visible structure, with a relieved grunt, and then helps Yani pull her body up alongside her. Their trousers are soaked through to the knees, and the swamp mud is slathered in a foetid layer to their boots. Seven’s whole body aches with the effort of walking, and Yani doesn’t seem to have fared much better. They collapse on the platform for a moment, their breath misting into the pale grey sky. The toxic, rotten egg-stinking air is cold on Seven’s front, and the platform that they’re lying on is hard and uncomfortable at Seven’s back.

Yani reaches across without aiming and taps the back of her hand on Seven’s stomach. She lets it rest over Seven’s jumper instead of drawing back again, too exhausted to even move.

“Prophets. I could sleep for a year,” the mechanic complains, “this planet _sucks_. I’m asking for my money back,” she says.

Seven nods, her loosely-tied hair snagging against the surface they’re lying on.

“I hear you,” Seven agrees, “one hundred percent. We’ll have to write the bad guys a strongly-worded letter...later. But for now, we ought to keep moving,” she says.

Seven rolls to her knees with difficulty and holds out a hand to help her friend. Yani accepts the assistance and brushes her pants down, pointlessly, but the movement keeps her blood flowing and helps to fight off the biting air. The smaller woman shivers a bit as she looks up at the sloping grey wall of the closest building. There are seven of them, each one hunkered down against the freezing, marshy landscape like a burrowing tick, its big grey head buried deep beneath the skin of a gargantuan host.

“We should walk the perimeter of this structure - see if there’s a door,” Yani says.

They set off in search of an entrance, and Seven reminds both of them to make sure their phasers are switched off.

“We have to remember: no shooting outside. Not unless we want to blow ourselves up accidentally,” she says.

“No, that would be embarrassing,” Yani says, using sarcasm to distract herself from their situation.

Seven half-smiles at Yani’s quip, but can’t think of any suitable reply. She rounds the arc of the huge building’s perimeter and then slows, making a gesture for Yani who is following in her wake.

“There’s a station up ahead,” Seven says, pointing at a small, square outbuilding in the distance. The building is an obvious addition to the smooth, grey dome that towers beside it. It looks pre-fabricated and new, even from their position. In comparison, the bigger, curved structure could be centuries old.

“Guard’s post?” Rozyani asks, frowning down at the damp mud that’s still drying to her pants.

Seven shrugs, “It might be. Your guess is as good as mine.”

She looks appraisingly at the uninterrupted cladding of the dome’s exterior, “I don’t think they’re keeping watch for unexpected visitors, though…” says Seven, “...the volatile atmosphere seems to be deterrent enough.”

Yani grimaces with her, the stench of the sulphur is strong.

“You’re not wrong there,” says Yani.

There’s nothing in the way of cover for the women to sneak up to the outbuilding. So the pair of them make their way over there with a mixture of urgency to get indoors, and trepidation that they might be met with resistance. Seven breathes a sigh of relief when they finally reach the building unchallenged, though that relief quickly dissipates when they’re met with a locked door.

The gases in the atmosphere are starting to make them both feel a little woozy and stupid, and Seven knows that they haven’t got much time before they need to get inside. The hyposprays that she and Yani gave themselves can only do so much to help their systems overcome the toxic air. Seven’s blood has nanoprobes to reduce the damage, but Yani’s doesn’t. The less time they spend outside, the better.

Seven tries to think of something that will get them past the security panel. Her brain works clumsily. It’s a bit like being drunk. She recalls an old trick that she learned from her days on Voyager.

“Do you have...a hairpin?” Seven asks.

Yani pats her pockets with a dazed frown, “Um, no,” then she pulls out a random piece of wire from one of her many pockets, “but I do have a…” the mechanic scowls at it, “whatever the fuck this used to be.”

“I’ll take it,” says Seven.

Seven takes the wire and sticks one end of it into the building’s security panel. She touches the other end of the wire to a join between the skin and metal of her Borg-implanted hand but pauses, looking over to her friend.

“...You might not want to watch this,” she says.

Obviously, that prompts the mechanic to look immediately, “...watch what?”

Seven winces as she forces the metal into her hand to the sound of Yani’s surprise.

“...oh!” Yani says.

Seven grits her teeth and tries to focus. She pulls Borg code from the deep-buried jumble of her Collective memory and sends it down the wire to the chip controlling the door.

After a moment of intense concentration, Seven both feels and hears the mechanisms on the door pop free, and the once-barred entryway jolts open, hissing dolefully.

Yani’s eyes are wide with a mixture of shock and awe. She watches Seven slide the wire out of her hand.

“Holy fuck Annika, are you okay?” Yani takes hold of the back of Seven’s injured hand, examining the damage.

Seven flexes her fingers, nervously waiting for her friend’s reaction to witnessing the capability of the alien technology that makes up most of her body. The sting in the area where she’d inserted the wire barely even registers anymore. A metallic darkening around the injury shows where her nanoprobes are already working on their repairs.

Yani turns her attention to the unlocked door, then back to Seven’s eyes.

“I had no idea you could do that,” says Yani.

Seven watches her friend analytically, “I can do a lot of things with my technology,” she says.

Yani looks impressed, concerned and amused.

“I suppose the need doesn’t come up so often, huh?” the mechanic frowns up at her, “...I hope it’s not always that...violent and alarming though…?” Yani says, with genuine care.

Seven feels some of her tension leave her, “No. Well I don’t think so, anyway.”

*

The interior of the outbuilding holds a computer terminal, a toilet and sink alcove, a replicator, and one chair tucked into a glass-topped desk. A small, square transporter platform sits against the far wall of the room, providing secured access to the rest of the facility.

Rozyani switches the terminal on, hoping to find a map. A blinking cursor on the large black screen stops her immediately.

“We need a password,” says Yani.

Seven sighs tiredly, wanting just _one small part_ of this day to just _be_ a little easier.

There’s a framed wedding holo on the desk with the date stamped along one border. Next to that holo is a notepad with a list of groceries written on it, of all things. The first line reads ‘ _Tribble food - Trixie_ ’.

“Try the wedding date and the pet’s name together,” Seven guesses, assuming that surely it wouldn’t be that idiotic, “Capitalise the letter ‘T’.”

Yani shrugs and enters the password, she has nothing better to suggest.

Unexpectedly, the screen display blinks and access is granted. Both women are surprised. The background display of the computer screen reads _‘Seven Domes Facility, Incorporated’_ , with a tag-line that claims that the company is ‘ _At the Cutting Edge of Technological Research and Development_ ’.

“Every villain likes hyperbole…” Yani grouses as she opens an application and pokes around the facility’s intranet. If there’s a map of this forsaken place, then it’s most likely to be kept there. Finally, Rozyani finds the map: It’s an enormous facility, with no convenient red ‘X’ marker showing Icheb’s location. There are, however, icons showing fast-transit stations to other parts of the facility, leading to each of the hulking domes.

Seven sees two areas within the facility labelled with the words ‘holding area’ and ‘processing’. She points to them decisively.

“We should visit those two first,” Seven says.

Yani copies the map to their comm units and then powers down the computer. She pushes the chair she’s sitting in backwards to stand.

“Are you ready for this?” Yani asks.

Seven makes eye contact with her friend, dreading what they might find inside the facility and not feeling ready at all.

“No,” she says, denying her urge to claim that she feels fine in self-defense, “but I will adapt.”

Yani holds out her hand to Seven and walks to the transporter platform, stepping onto it.

“Come with me,” says Yani.

Seven takes Yani’s offered hand and they stand on the platform together. Seven gives the voice command to activate it.

With a deep breath, Seven raises her chin and says, “Computer, energise.”

## \--- Holding Area 19 ---

For a facility claiming to be at the cutting edge of technological research and development, the interior of the first dome that they enter is disconcertingly grey and poorly-lit. Seven looks up and down the long, curving corridor with its ceiling covered in bundles of piping and shares a glance with Yani, who is standing beside her. Seven pulls out her phaser pistol and Yani does the same with hers, switching the power on.

“This way,” Seven says.

The women’s boots echo on the hard grey floor as they walk down the corridor for what feels like ages. A holographic sign on the wall labels the next hallway they get to as ‘ _Holding Area 19 A’_. They both sneak in, aware of the noise of their footsteps in the otherwise quiet building.

The holding area consists of a long grey corridor with rectangular rooms set at regular intervals along either side of its length. The overhead lights in most of the rooms are switched off, the motion sensors inside them set for energy conservation. Yani steps into one of the darkened rooms and triggers the lights to open. They flicker into brightness with a click and a hum. An extractor fan starts spinning, shifting the stale air through the concrete room.

The mechanic calls Seven through the open door. Her voice is bleak.

“Annika? Come and look at this,” Yani says.

Seven goes, as requested, not knowing what to expect.

“Oh,” Seven says.

Yani is standing in front of a transparent wall, which cuts across one third of the room from floor to ceiling. Her friend steps closer to the long, clear divider and touches her fingers to it, peering through. Seven realises that a similar set up must be present in all the rooms.

“It looks like a holding cell,” Yani says.

Seven joins her in front of the glass, also looking. There’s nothing in there. No seat, no bed, not even a bucket for water. The uncaring grey of the walls and the floor inside the holding cell are clear of any markings, though there are rust-brown spatters of what could be blood near the opposite wall.

Seven’s breath fogs the glass in front of her when Yani asks, “Who were they holding here?”

Her unspoken ‘ _Do you think one of these cells might hold Icheb?_ ’ lingers in the air.

Seven turns away from the glass and pulls up the map that Yani loaded onto her comm unit. She uses her perusal of the display to distract herself from Yani’s unspoken question, and from the worry that is eating at her inside. The rooms labelled ‘ _Processing Area_ ’ are still several meters away, and there are three other rooms that are likely to contain similar holding cells, such as the one they are currently standing before.

“There’s too much ground for us to cover both of these together,” Seven says, “It would be more efficient for us to search them separately and then meet up at the processing area later...Keep your phaser ready.”

Seven forces herself to say the words she’s been avoiding, “Icheb may not have much time.”

Yani puts her hand on her phaser pistol and nods solemnly.

“I’ll check Holding Area 19 B, and you check 19 C. I’ll meet you outside the processing area in ten minutes,” Yani says.

Seven nods, putting her comm away, “Alright. Be safe.”

Rozyani grips her friend’s bicep, her hand firm around the leather of Seven’s jacket, “Hey Annika,” she says, waiting for Seven to look at her, “you too.”

## \--- Processing Area ---

Walking over to, and checking the cells in the holding area takes a less time than Seven expected, and she returns to the meeting point she set with Yani with a couple of minutes to spare. She stands beside the wall, lurking in the shadows and keeping an eye out for Yani’s arrival. The building around her is still and quiet, the only real sound is the background hum of the atmospheric system pumping in breathable air. Seven wonders why the building seems to be empty, why everywhere they’ve looked seems to have been without employees or guards.

A door to Seven’s left slides open, causing her to freeze and watch it in alarm.

Nothing happens.

“Yani?”

The motion-sensing lights from space behind the doorway flicker open, fighting against the shadows of the lights in Seven’s hallway.

Seven draws her phaser and creeps carefully towards it, “Yani?”

Seven jumps a mile when Yani turns up behind her, although it was from the direction she’d been expecting. Seven’s abrupt movement nearly knocks the mechanic over.

“Yani!” Seven says, one hand over her heart, “you’ve got to warn a person.”

The mechanic looks confused, but joins Seven in her vigil of the mysteriously opening door.

“Sorry,” says Yani, “the rest of the cells were clear.”

The mechanic stands cautiously beside her friend, “What are we looking at?”

Seven gestures at the doorway, it stands harmlessly open with the light shining through it, “That just opened by itself and then the lights came on.”

“That’s not at all suspicious,” Yani says sarcastically. She shifts her phaser between her hands, “We should probably go in though.”

Seven nods, and they step through the threshold of the open door with their phasers drawn. They don’t hear anybody moving in the rooms closest to them, just the sound of the ventilation fans and the hum of electricity overhead. They push a few of the doors open as they continue onward, scoping out the rooms. All of them are empty of people, tidy. They’re filled with lab equipment, cutting tools. The kind of things that might be used for heavy work.

An organic smell starts to filter through the space they’re in, undiluted by the atmospheric system’s filters. It sneaks in beneath the sterile scent of the laboratories; a sticky, raw odour of old meat and blood.

Seven looks at Yani, who is walking next to her.

“Can you smell that?” Seven says.

Yani’s nose wrinkles, “Yeah...it’s like...rotting meat or something.”

They round a corner to find a pair of rooms with clear plastic flaps across them. The forked spikes and black circle of the Biohazard symbol are printed over one door, and the word ‘Incinerator’ is printed across the other.

Seven hesitates before the Biohazard door, “What are the chances it’s coming from in here?”

Yani responds to her question with a grimace, “Probably a solid bet…”

Seven rolls her shoulders in determination.

“I’m going in there,” says Seven, “stay here and watch my back.”

*

The stink of decay and dying flesh multiplies as soon as Seven pushes past the hard-plastic entrance to the Biohazard room. She gags, using her sleeve to cover her mouth and nose. There are two large bins, both with dark blue paint chipping off them. They’re piled high with yellow plastic bags. All of them bulging and heavy with something dark brown-red and unidentifiable through the thick plastic.

Aware of her recklessness in having entered the room in the first place, and without adequate protection, Seven chooses not to investigate the contents of the bags by opening them to see what’s inside. There is however, an open trolley of the kind that’s used to collect rubbish parked against the far wall. Seven walks up to it and looks inside, then stumbles backward in horror and surprise. She breathes heavily, a vice-like terror winding around her chest. 

_No. It can’t be_.

She shuts her eyes tight, then opens them again, Seven knows what she saw.

Seven approaches the bin and looks down one more time. There’s no denying it. The yellow bag on top of the pile covers the unmistakable curve of a human head, the plastic pulling tight against the person’s ear. The rest of their body is not attached. The bag just isn’t big enough. Seven can’t see the person’s face, and she’s thankful for it. Just seeing someone like this, so violated, is horror enough. But then...her brain resolves more outlines through the obscuring yellow plastic: The curl of discarded wires. The detritus of a spinal implant clinging to threads of alien flesh.

_They’re killing Ex-Borg in here. How many bodies…?_

Seven doesn’t believe in any deities, but the word slips out anyway. She heads shakily back towards the door.

“ _Jesus_ ,” Seven says.

*

Yani grabs hold of Seven’s shoulder when she stumbles from the Biohazard room, her entire body trembling.

Seven lets Yani brace her, as she swallows hard and tries to get her lungs under control.

“They butchered them, Yani,” says Seven, “It’s…”

The sound of someone shouting, hoarse and distant, interrupts whatever else Seven was going to say. Both women turn their heads toward it, Yani looking alarmed, and with Seven still trying to catch her breath.

“ _Icheb_ ,” says Seven, hoping that she doesn’t really recognise that voice. Cold panic eats at her, clouding everything.

Distantly, she feels the warm pressure of Yani’s fingers taking her hand, tugging her into motion alongside her, urgently. Seven can hear Yani speaking, maybe her name or some other encouragement, but she doesn't understand. Seven’s feet move, though she has no conscious knowledge of doing it. There’s sweat on her back and under her arms. Her grip on her phaser is slippery where she clutches it.

The shout breaks off, and the hallway is silent, waiting. The atmospheric system sighs like a prayer. Then, the harsh, wild sound of something worse: the whine of a machine, first high pitched and frantic and then dulled, shifting to baritone. Like the motor is putting in some extra effort to fight its way through a solid medium.

That broken voice, sobbing.

Seven gets a flashback of the severed head in the bag and something snaps inside of her: like a switch turning off. Annika retreats and Seven takes over.

“I’ve had enough of this,” says Seven, dropping Yani’s hand and picking up her pace, leaving the mechanic to hurry after her.

“Annika?” Yani says, though her voice is distant.

*

Seven cannot hear her. She hears nothing but the sound of that voice, crying out, and then stopping, then starting up again. The eerie gasps of sullen quiet that are somehow _worse_ than the screams. A new room, more bodies, discarded or racked up on display. Borg parts laid out like meat at an abattoir, implants stripped free of their humanoid bodies, some still grimy with a film of blood-haggard flesh. Another door, another horror. The whine of that machine rising, an alto accompaniment to the heart-wrenching scream. That panting yelp of terror and pain. Humanoid parts discarded in a bin: the yellow bags full to bursting. The forked black stamp marking them ‘ _Biohazard_ ’.

Yani lagging behind her, the sound of retching. Perhaps her name again.

Seven feels sick, outraged, scared more than she has been at any point in her life – and she’s lived through assimilation. She rounds a corner, her heart beating faster. One man in a white lab coat, his back turned. He’s a stranger. He’s a threat. Her body moves entirely by instinct. Seven lifts her arm, her phaser raised. One quick pull of the trigger: He falls like a puppet with its strings cut. Meaty smack of his head against the floor, skull making impact with a crack.

Seven is unmoved – _nothing matters – nothing other than finding Icheb_.

New passageway, dim-lit laboratory. Disinfectant steam and yellow lighting to keep the shadows away. She hears the motor whirring – the rising wail. The toffee-sweet sound of an unseen woman asking, like it’s nothing, “Hey buddy, where’s your cortical node?”

Seven stuns another doctor...technician. Whatever - he’s wearing a lab coat. His body topples with a thud. Yani is somewhere far behind her now, but she’s following. She’ll be okay.

The woman calls out, “Bjayzl?”

Seven looks over her shoulder, confused, briefly expecting help. Forgetting for a second what she already knows.

Then she turns the final corner: Icheb lying on a table, arms, chest, legs all bound in restraints. The lady: gold-blonde hair tied back behind her ears, clear safety glasses, white apron, gloves and lab coat stained bright with other people’s blood. The stench: like a meat shop without the context of safety.

Seven fires her weapon. The woman falls, knocking instruments from her table. The nightmare in her hand flipping end-on-end as it falls to the floor. Icheb gasping, sobbing in pain and relief when he sees her, his tormentor dead, _it’s over_ \- but crying at the sight of Seven too.

One last time: his family.

Seven undoes the restraints, promising she can get him out of here, that everything is going to be ok. It’s pointless. A blatant lie and she knows it, Icheb too.

“Go,” says Icheb.

Seven sighs, looks at his torn skin, his ravaged eye. He’s heavy in her hands, her arm wrapped around him, his shoulders feel sodden with the mess of blood. Seven isn’t ready to let go. Not this way. It’s too brutal, too unkind.

“Then...I’ll stay with you,” says Seven.

Icheb gasps painfully, he’s crying. His nanoprobes have been keeping him conscious, repairing all the little wounds in an effort to keep his human systems alive. It’s a merciless irony, his body’s Borg technology only trying to do what it's told. He’s been missing for seventy-two hours now.

Icheb’s voice, that broken one that she’d been following, begging her.

“No, Seven. Please,” Icheb says.

Seven falters, her heart breaking. Icheb looks at her, with his single undamaged eye. He’s had enough. It needs to end right now. It would be heartless of her, to make him live. He wants to be let go.

Seven hugs Icheb to her body, his chin against her shoulder. She places her phaser against his breastbone, changes the setting away from ‘ _stun_ ’.

Seven says goodbye to him, “I’m so sorry, my child.”

She fires.

*

Yani catches up with Seven moments later, entering the awful room at a run.

“Seven! What were you -” she catches sight of Icheb, heavy on the blood-soaked table, his torso wrapped in Seven’s arms.

“- Prophets, Icheb. Oh, no…” Yani says.

Seven hears the other woman’s footsteps drawing closer, imagines Yani looking disbelieving, horrified, speechless. Neither of them knowing what to do. 

Seven feels Yani watching as she puts Icheb’s still-warm body down, lying him back upon the table. It’s hard for her to look away from Icheb, and she’s not sure what it will do to her if she has to look up at her friend.

Seven wipes her hands against her trousers, not wanting to look down at the damp patch on her jumper, knowing that it will be drenched with blood. She angles her head sideways, in Yani’s direction but still not looking at her. She’s not looking at anything.

Seven is reeling with emotion. She can identify it. She’s feeling grief.

“Yani, help. Help me carry him? Find a - a gurney somewhere,” says Seven.

Yani sighs behind her, a sound filled with pain for both of her friends, “Seven…”

Seven grips the edge of the table, hating how her hands still feel slick with Icheb’s blood, “Yani, please.”

Yani gives in, stepping away from her, “Alright,” the small sound of her answer is barely there.

Rozyani searches the room until she finds a rolling gurney tucked behind another ‘bed’. She brings it over and they roll Icheb’s body onto it. Seven barely registers any of it, just the heave and pull of physical work. Her body aches. They use a sheet to cover the face of his corpse…it's both easier and worse that way. More final, more real. They go, Seven pushing the trolley while Yani follows solemnly behind.

*

The journey through the empty corridors back to the transporter pad that will return them to the guard’s station is the longest walk of Seven’s life. The facility is quiet again, just the whinny of the gurney’s wheels and the sighing of the atmospheric system keeping company with the static inside Seven’s head.

Something gets knocked over inside one of the rooms along the corridor as they’re passing. The sound of pointed footsteps...a person wearing heels?

Seven ducks behind the gurney, feeling Rozyani moving with her. Both women ready their phasers. Whoever it was would have heard them coming. They know that someone’s out here.

Around the gurney, Seven says, “Who’s there?”

Bjayzl steps out, her weapon raised. It’s a small, antique pistol. A tiny silver handgun that fires projectiles like the ones in the holonovels that Tom Paris liked to play. She aims it at Seven’s chest. Her dark eyes make contact with her lover, and Seven cannot find anyone familiar in that gaze. Instead, she sees a stranger who’s smiling sweetly, with the dead-eyed stare of someone who once read about compassion in a book, but didn’t grasp the concept.

Seven raises her hands slowly and stands up as Bjayzl moves towards her. Her outfit is elaborate, it’s nothing like Seven’s ever seen.

“Jay...what are you doing here?” says Seven.

“That’s interesting...I could also ask you the same,” Bjayzl says.

Yani straightens up beside Seven, she has one hand around her phaser.

“We came for Icheb,” Yani says.

Bjayzl looks down at the gurney and makes a sad little face at the body, scoffing.

“Oh, well this is awkward,” Bjayzl says.

Seven wants to strangle her. Seven wants to run away. _This can’t be happening_.

“You need to tell me what all of this bullshit is about, Jay,” says Seven, “This isn’t awkward. My son is _dead_.” 

Her voice catches when she says the word. She clenches the fingers of her human hand into a fist. Her palm stings where her fingernails press against her flesh.

“Tell me you’re not a part of this, Jay,” Seven asks, breaking, knowing that denial would be impossible, but hoping for it anyway, “ _Promise me_.”

Bjayzl only laughs, and the woman that Seven loved dies like Icheb did. She dies with Annika.

“Oh darling,” says this stranger, “You know I can’t do that. - _Oh, don’t look at me that way_. Money, power. You’ve heard about it, haven’t you? It’s a big bad universe and a girl’s gotta eat, “ Bjayzl says.

Bjayzl taps a finger on the bloodstained sheet covering Icheb’s corpse, “There’s a fat market out there for Borg technology and yet there are so many of you X-B cash cows walking around, not even making use of it. I did.”

Bjayzl smiles at both of them, her painted lips twitching into a sarcastic little moue of regret, “It wasn’t _personal_ , Annika. This is _business_.”

Seven tries hard not to grind her teeth, “It’s barbaric.”

“I don’t think so darling,” Bjayzl says, “I think of it more like art. I’m a connoisseur – trading in only the best and finest Ex-Borg parts,” She looks over Seven, taking a step towards her, “...and you were always so… _pretty._ ”

There’s a brief rush of movement as Yani stands in front of Bjayzl, preventing her from approaching Seven.

“You motherfucking _bitch_ , Jay,” Rozyani says, “You don’t touch her!”

There’s a flash of fire and an ear-splitting bang. The gun is smoking in Bjayzl’s hand, everything stutters, in slow motion. Then Yani stumbles against Seven’s chest, doubling over.

Many things start happening at once.

Seven, horrified, shouts “No!”

Yani slides to the floor, hissing through her teeth against the pain.

Seven moves to retaliate but Bjayzl taps an emergency beacon around her wrist, a transporter alert that Seven had always assumed was a bracelet. There’s a shimmer of light as the other woman is whisked away. Gone.

Seven runs to Yani’s side. It’s not good.

“I’m sorry,” says Yani.

Seven presses her hands over Yani’s wound, helping her friend slow the blood oozing slowly from her stomach.

“No, it’s okay,” says Seven, “We’re okay. I’ll get you out of here.”

It feels like deja-vu. It’s terrifying.

Yani raises an eyebrow, grimacing, “If you say so.”

The mechanic tries to give her friend a smile, but winces instead. They both press down harder against her stomach wound. She shares a look with Seven, her dark eyes showing something silenced.

“Ah, Fuck. Your girlfriend is a bitch. You should just dump her,” Yani says instead.

Seven scoffs, blinking back the tears flooding her eyes, “Shut up Yani,” she says, “your jokes aren’t funny.”

Yani grunts, “Tough crowd.”

Seven wants to touch Yani’s face, but she doesn’t want to get blood on her...ironic though it may be.

“The worst,” says Seven. She presses her lips to her friend’s forehead, gently.

Yani gives a small laugh, then takes a breath, drawn in painfully.

She looks at Seven again, “Well at least one of us needs to make it out of here. Let people know what’s happening. We can’t let Bjayzl get away with this. Go get help, I’ll be alright.”

Seven stands, peeling off her jacket and pulling her jumper over her head. She hands it to Yani, balling up the cloth.

“Stay with me, Yani,” says Seven. She slides her jacket back on.

Yani nods, pushing Seven’s jumper against her stomach. Her small hands are dark with blood.

“Don’t worry, Seven,” says Yani, “I’m not going anywhere.”


	16. The End Bit.

## \--- Coppelius: Borg Cube ---

( **Earlier** )

Seven sits on a broken edge of decking. She’s high up, on one floor of the crashed Borg Cube on Coppelius. The deck above the one she’s sitting on has torn away, leaving the room open to the darkening sky. Seven dangles her booted feet over the ragged corner of the wreckage. She can see, but not hear the waves of the ocean in miniature below her. A cooling breeze blowing in from the desert is pulling at the loose curtain of her hair. She’s built a small campfire from the detritus of the crash in the space behind her. Its flames throw an orange-yellow glow on the plating of the buckled deck.

Seven had slunk up to her hiding place after her evening of drinking with Rios. A new bottle of mind-numbing alcohol made by the synthetics tucked under her arm. She let the Ex-B’s know that she didn’t want anyone to bother her. That _no_ , she wasn’t hungry, and that all she really wanted was a moment with her thoughts. 

She opens the shitty alcohol and tosses the cap into the air in front of her. She watches it falling for a long time. It tumbles, becoming smaller. Then it disappears into the ocean waves. Seven leans forwards a little bit, considering her feet against the open air. She feels the pull of gravity. _It could be easier._ Then she grips at the deck, and its sheared-off edge is like sandpaper on her palms.

It sucked, this _being human._ It was really fucking hard. 

Jean-Luc could say what he liked to her, about finding her humanity, and never going back. About recovering what assimilation had taken, and fighting ‘the _good fight’._ It was all a load of crap.

The lights of Synthville, as Raffi called it, flicker open in the distance. A single point of interest on the frontier between land and sky. Seven leans back again, and directs her gaze upwards. She wonders what else is out there. Icheb wasn’t. Neither was Hugh. None of the Ex-Borg who’d been cut down by Bjayzl were, either. Seven could never make it up to them. That was her failure.

Taking the lives of their tormentors, and of Bjayzl’s in particular, hadn’t sorted anything. Revenge wasn’t quite the solace that Seven hoped it would be. Icheb was never coming back. None of them were going to have any more days. In hindsight, Narissa’s murder was an error, no matter how justified. It crossed over a forbidden line.

Seven worries about the type of person she’s become.

At least Rozyani made it. Though it hurt that she’d fled back home to Bajor, traumatised, and never tried to contact Seven again. The mechanic is conspicuous in her absence, and Seven misses her painfully. She hopes that Yani is happier now. Another point racked up for Jay.

Someone disturbs the detritus in the dark room, and Seven turns around, pulling both legs up onto the decking beside her. She cranes her neck over her shoulder, with a frown on her face. 

Raffi stands in the shadowed doorway. She has one hand braced restlessly against the wall, tap-tapping out a rhythm for her nerves. Seven says nothing, and just watches her. She wonders what the other woman has to say. 

Raffi takes a deep breath and makes an unvoiced decision. She walks across the room towards Seven’s campfire. The flames cast a glow against the soft wild edges of her hair. Raffi stops at the perimeter of the campfire’s circle. Her fingers tangling at the hem of her tank top. Her nervous silence keeps Seven waiting. 

“...May I join you?” Raffi says.

Seven swings her long legs back over the side, and turns away from the other woman with a tilt of her head. It’s neither an invitation nor an outright rejection.

Raffi chooses to stay. 

She comes to the edge of the decking and sits down beside Seven. Then Raffi looks cautiously over the edge of the Borg Cube and gives a startled gasp, her warm fingers reflexively wrapping around Seven’s forearm.

“Oh boy, that’s a long way down,” says Raffi.

Seven notices how Raffi’s hand lingers, even though she’s only doing it out of mortal concern. She looks down at the distant water with her. 

“It is,” Seven agrees, then she offers Raffi some of the awful Coppelian alcohol, “this helps.”

Seven’s companion shakes her head, her fingers still firm around Seven’s bare forearm. 

“Maybe later,” she says.

Seven nods, and answers, “Very well.” She pushes the bottle aside.

Raffi’s fingers slide away from her and Seven notices their absence. Seven watches the other woman looking out at the contrast of the desert sands and Synthville’s lights, the dunes contoured against the foreign sky. All of them blur into the nothing blackness of the night time water.

Raffi touches the back of her fingers to the curve of jaw below her own cheek, then slides them down along her neck. She unknowingly mimics Seven’s previous contemplation of the starlit sky. She gently massages the top part of her spine, kneading the tensed muscles there. Raffi has such expressive hands. Another random _something_ that Seven notices about her. Dark eyes and darker skin. Seven thinks for a brief second that she might find Raffi beautiful, with her hesitant ways. _-The attraction is purely physical._ \- Seven quickly dismisses the thought. She’s made that mistake before. 

Seven pulls the terrible alcohol back into her lap, takes a bracing pull from it, and then toys with the bottle between her hands. 

“How did you find me?” Seven asks her.

“I poked around,” Raffi says. 

Then Raffi takes the alcohol from the Fenris Ranger, takes an inquisitive sip from it. Her lips pressed down upon the glass rim where Seven’s mouth used to be. Seven watches her, and it takes a long second for either of them to break eye contact. 

Raffi swallows, sounding flustered again, “Uh…well actually, one of your Ex-B’s blabbed and gave your hiding spot away,” she says.

“Hm,” says Seven. 

Raffi doesn’t give the bottle back. Instead she studies it, like Seven did, grimacing.

“This is _really_ awful,” she says.

Seven huffs with mild amusement and shifts closer to Raffi, without any deliberate intention of doing so. Raffi taps the edge of her boot against Seven’s, the light touch drawing back the Ex-Borg’s attention. The small gesture is so similar to Yani’s that it makes Seven suck in a breath and look away from her.

“Why did you come here?” Seven asks quietly.

Raffi exhales, “Elnor told me you seemed unhappy, and uh, Cris might’ve mentioned something,” Raffi says. “And I thought, uh, I mean...I wanted to make sure you were okay,” she finishes.

Raffi studies her, intently. “ _Are_ you okay?” Raffi says.

Seven sighs, contemplating the pros and cons of deceiving Raffi, against the simplicity of saying ‘no’. In the end, the truth seems wiser.

“No. I’m not,” she replies.

Raffi squeezes the bottle of alcohol into the small space between their bodies so that both of them can have access to it, if they want to. Seven notices that Raffi also angles her thigh so that their knees are touching. Their shins shift together in the air.

“I’ll listen, if you want to talk. For as long as you want to,” Raffi says eventually, “what were you thinking about?” 

Seven frowns out at the desert, and braces herself for confession.

“I was thinking about the lines we draw in the sand…” she says, pulling the metaphor from their surroundings, “what happens to us when we cross them.”

“Which lines do you mean?” asks Raffi.

Seven’s voice becomes softer, more introspective. She inhales, holds the breath, and lets it out again.

“The one that separates vigilante from murderer, and mother from monster,” she says.

The night seems to grow quiet and still.

“Oh,” says Raffi, “ _that_ one.”

Seven takes their shared bottle of alcohol and chokes more of it down.

“I killed someone. A lover. Because she took my family,” says Seven. The bottle clicks against the deck when she puts it down beside her. “Then I killed a relative stranger…not just for Hugh, but because it all still _hurt_ so fucking much.”

Raffi looks down at their bottle. She wipes the glass rim of it with her thumb, for no reason. And then catches Seven’s eyes with hers, holding them there.

“Tell me about them,” Raffi says.

*

The dawn is approaching by the time Seven finishes her story. It starts with a subtle brightening in the sky, like someone has turned the contrast up. Then, red is the first colour to appear on the horizon, bleeding into the sand and tinting it to pink and grey. It will fill out with brown and orange as the sun climbs higher, but it’s early hours yet. There is the sound of insects chirping, and the cool wind of the night-time dies away. The day will be a hot one. There’s a promise of fine weather in the air. 

Seven is sitting cross-legged on the decking, and Raffi has stretched herself out beside her. At some point, Raffi rested her head on Seven’s shoulder, tiredly. Then Seven took pity on her, and let Raffi make a pillow of her lap. It’s curious...to feel this comfortable, here, with this woman, though Seven barely knows her. But she still likes Raffi anyway.

Maybe it’s their shared moment of vulnerability. Maybe Seven just needs someone. Perhaps she should have tried harder to reach out to Yani. Perhaps she should never have put her faith in with Bjayzl, and loved her. Perhaps she should not have become a Fenris Ranger. 

Perhaps a lot of things. But it’s done now. Time is a brutal critic like that.

Raffi sniffles, and Seven looks down to see her wiping furtively at her eyes. Seven exhales, still caught up in the memory of Rozyani and Icheb and Bjayzl, and realises that her chest feels tight.

“And then what happened?” Raffi asks, her voice sounds rough and sleepy. She reaches up for Seven’s hand, and Seven takes it, carefully. Raffi cradles the awkward tangle of their fingers against her chest. 

“I lost two good people that day,” Seven says.

Raffi startles, “Oh god, did Yani-?”

Seven realises what that sounded like, and hurries to reassure her, “No, I didn’t mean it like that,” she says, “Yani’s okay. She just...had a sort of post-traumatic breakdown and went back home to Bajor. I never managed to get in contact with her again.”

Raffi squeezes her fingers. 

“I’m still sorry to hear it,” says Raffi, “fear can make us strangers, even with the people that we love most.” Another squeeze, “Yani sounds like she was a good friend.”

Seven sighs with her.

“Yes, she really was... _is_...,” she says, the tenses are confusing, “I miss her.”

Seven flexes her thigh, because her leg has started falling asleep. The first numb prickle of pins and needles are promising their arrival. She’ll need to get up soon. 

“I’m sorry about Icheb, too,” Raffi says, and Seven realises that it might be the first time she’s heard anyone say that. 

Raffi pulls herself out of Seven’s lap and sits upright. She braces her upper body weight by leaning sideways on her arm, palm flat on the decking beside her. She has the wrinkle of the fabric from Seven’s trousers imprinted on her cheek. Seven watches her rubbing at it, and finds the movement endearing. 

“I have a kid, too,” Raffi continues, “Gabe.” 

Raffi looks out at the sun, which has climbed higher above the dunes. The reds and pinks of dawn have faded away and now the bolder colours of early morning are coming through. There’s another shift change in the background noise of the wildlife: the insects quieting, to be replaced with the startled gabbling of birds.

“It’s not quite the same story as Icheb’s,” Raffi says, “but I know what it feels like to be a mother who’s failed...even if, maybe we haven’t. That’s up to _us_ to decide, whether we tried enough to help them. We’re just not _super human..._ I suppose.”

Raffi rolls to her feet and offers Seven her arm, pulling the Ranger up until she’s standing. She doesn’t immediately let Seven’s arm go. So Seven finds that Raffi is effectively anchoring her in place. 

“Seven?” Raffi says after a moment of nothing. She waits until the other woman looks at her. 

“Yes?” Seven answers.

“You’re not alone,” Raffi tells her.

*

Later, Raffi comes back to the Borg Cube with an old Starfleet comm badge. Seven recognises its design, probably retrofitted from the _Ibn Majid_ for use on the _La Sirena._ Raffi gives it to her. Happily interrupting the work that Seven was only half-heartedly doing anyway: trying to recalibrate a replicator’s temperature controls.

Seven turns the communicator over in her hands, her eyebrow raised at Raffi, who’s looking flustered again. It’s very cute on her, and Seven enjoys it. 

“What’s this for?” Seven asks.

“Our ship,” says Raffi, “uh, I mean, not this one,” she gestures at the entirety of the Borg Cube, “for the _La Sirena.”_

Then, awkwardly - “I’m kind of…hoping that you’ll come with us? …and the rest of the crew is too,” Raffi adds quickly. 

Seven puts down the tool that she was still holding and looks around at her broken ship. The once impressive Borg Cube in a billion crumpled pieces. The edges of the communicator press against her fingers, where she’s curled the object into a fist against her chest. Raffi watches her expectantly. Her brown eyes are dark and wide.

Seven considers it. The Borg Cube, and the communicator, and then Raffi, who is asking her. There’s a hopefulness in Raffi’s expression that appeals to Seven. It reaches out to her, pushing its way past all her sorrow.

Seven bites her lip. 

“I’ll have to organise something for the Ex-B’s first, to see if they want to work with the Synthetics,” she feels something in her chest warm rapidly when Raffi’s expression brightens, “but then... _yes_. I suppose Picard has broken yet _another_ of my god damned ships. He owes me,” she says. 

Seven nudges Raffi with one elbow. There’s a tentative smile pulling at her cheeks and she gives in, and lets it happen. 

“I guess I’m coming with you,” Seven finishes. 

Raffi gives an involuntarily little wriggle of excitement and pulls Seven into her arms, impulsively. Seven is shocked at first, but then relaxes, letting the other woman hold her. In that moment, while they’re standing there, Seven can believe that maybe she’s been doing it all wrong. And that hope can still be found. It’s a tantalising thought, and she wants to find it true.

Seven flexes her arms upwards to cradle Raffi’s back, and then curls her cheek against Raffi’s shoulder, squeezing gently. Raffi sighs against her, a contented sound.

The simple hug returned. 

**[END]**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys! We're done here! Thank you for reading.
> 
> To all those who've been sticking with the story and commenting:
> 
> MW and RegionalPancake - thank you for enjoying Rozyani so much that it was just not possible to let her die. She was going to...Yani owes you her life :D She's probably having a great time on Bajor, fixing spaceships and shouting at things.  
> No worries.
> 
> Thimblerig - I hope you have fun soldiering through to the end of the story and also that the ending pleases you! Good luck...
> 
> Troodster1972 - You can come out of the sad corner now I hope? Thank you for also soldiering on :D


End file.
